Barra is an island that, once visited, is never forgotten

The sandy runway of Barra's airport (Andrea Ricordi) — The sandy runway of Barra's airport.

What you will not see, however, is anything resembling a runway: Barra is famous as the only airport in the world where scheduled flights land on the beach.

The landing is bumpy as the tiny wheels rumble along the sand at low tide, and your shoes will get wet squelching up the windswept bay. Don’t bring luggage with wheels!

Besides a check-in counter, most of the tiny, nondescript shed of a terminal is taken up by its café, though it also serves as waiting area, car hire and de facto tourist bureau.

It’s easy to feel like you’re the only person there who doesn’t know everyone. As the only way back to civilisation – Flybe runs two flights a day to Glasgow depending on tides – it is meeting point for everyone to catch up, gossip and complain about the weather.

My taxi driver is a short, white-haired man who has perfected the art of driving along the narrow, winding roads one-handed.

Like many of the Hebridean island’s 1,174 inhabitants, he has been there for more than 25 years and used to work on the sea. Young people have been fleeing the Western Isles for decades, but many seem to find their way home in their later years.

From the moment you set foot on Barra you can feel the difference to the mainland.

The air is crisp and fresh, the locals are generally friendly and helpful and the landscape is breathtaking. Everything you want in a relaxing island getaway.

A single-lane road rings the coast, offering picturesque views of the rocky eastern edge, the wild Atlantic west coast and its pure white beaches, and the green sheep-covered hills punctuated with hundreds of ponds and inlets.

The only way to pass an oncoming car, bus or tractor is for one of you to pull over in one of the many (but not enough) passing points.

This requires constant vigilance and a quick wave to everyone as they go by.

There are also sheep, lots of sheep, marked with splashes of colour either to show ownership or make them visible against the grey sky.

The main settlement of Castlebay is named for Kisimul Castle, the seat of clan MacNeil that ruled Barra for centuries. Barra’s most famous attraction, it sits on a rock in the middle of the bay and ferries and tours run during summer.

While small, the village has two hotels, a few pubs (with more dotted around the island) and numerous bed and breakfasts run by welcoming islanders with great breakfast cooking.

I stayed at Endeavour B&B and the Castlebay Hotel.

For fans of the outdoors, cycling or walking up Heaval hill has amazing visas of the island and sea, and ocean kayaking is an experience not to be missed.

Hebridean tablet is made before your eyes just near the ferry and Barra’s first whisky distillery is due to be up and running by 2020, powered by wind energy.

Barra is steeped in ancient and medieval history, with abandoned forts and churches along with numerous ruins dating to the Iron Age and more recent medieval Scottish clans.

The tiny island of Eriskay is well worth a day trip or longer visit, accessible by a 40-minute ferry from near Barra airport.

It is where the SS Politician ran aground in 1941 carrying 260,000 bottles of whisky that was plundered by residents and neighbouring islanders, and made famous by the film Whisky Galore!

Like Barra, Eriskay has rolling hills and sandy white beaches, one of which was where Bonnie Prince Charlie arrived in Scotland on July 23, 1745 to start the Jacobite Uprising.

It is also home to many of the 400 Eriskay ponies remaining in the wild, which were used by islanders to transport the Politician’s illicit whisky after it was brought ashore.

With just 100 residents, no hotels and one B&B, the best place to stay on Eriskay is one of the many self-catering cottages booked by the week, otherwise the causeway to South Uist serves as a gateway to exploring other islands.

But wherever you choose, you can guarantee that while you may be just a few miles from the mainland, you’re, refreshingly, a peaceful other world away.