The Old Bridge Bunkhouse

A bed, a drying room and a pub through the wall

The Old Bridge Bunkhouse is the accommodation attached to the Old Bridge Inn, which has been the after-the-hill pub in Aviemore for as long as anyone can remember, and the arrangement is the whole proposition: come off Cairngorm or the Speyside Way, hang the wet kit in the drying room, and eat forty seconds later.

The rooms cover most budgets. Dorms for individuals, clubs and groups; private doubles and twins for anyone who wants a door that shuts without hotel prices; and family rooms. Every room has a workspace, a fridge and a kettle, which is more thought than bunkhouses usually give it, and the dorms share well-kept bathrooms.

There is a shared kitchen for cooking, though most people do not, because the Inn does hearty pub food, real ale and whisky, and puts on live music. Heating throughout means it works in February as well as August, and the drying room is the detail that separates a good ski week from a damp one.

Good to know

Features

Location

Where it puts you

Aviemore is the base for the Cairngorms, and the bunkhouse is in the middle of it, by the old bridge over the Spey. Cairngorm Mountain is fifteen minutes up the ski road for the snow in winter and the funicular and the plateau in summer, and the ski bus runs from the village.

Loch Morlich has the beach and the watersports, and Loch an Eilein and the Rothiemurchus pinewoods have the walks, and the Speyside Way passes the door if you would rather walk or ride flat. For climbers and skiers, this is one of the few places in the Highlands where the bed, the pub, the station and the mountain are all in the same fifteen minutes.