The Isle of Skye’s soaring popularity as a must-see destination has been highlighted by new research showing the island as one of the most popular hashtags on social media site Instagram.
Analysis of some 47 million social media posts was carried out to uncover the world’s road trip habits and most-favoured travel destinations.
Skye was found to be the most Instagrammed road trip destination in Europe, with almost 21,000 posts, looking at destinations used with the hashtag #roadtrip. The island was ahead of the Eiffel Tower, which had only 12,463 posts in comparison.
Scotland has proven popular with road trippers overall with #glencoe and #lochness also appearing in the top ten of #roadtrip posts, in fourth and eighth place respectively.
Hashtags #fairypools #oldmanofstorr #portree and #eileandonancastle also feature among the top 50 words associated with roadtrips in the 10 most popular European countries.
According to the data the North Coast 500 is the eighth most popular road trip route in Europe.
The list of road trip hotspots was compiled for car hire company Europcar by analysing over 47 million social media posts from across Instagram between 2016 and 2017.
The data has been put into a new road trip guide which highlights the main points of interests and sights that can be found along the world’s best road trip routes, and the guide is illustrated throughout with real Instagram images so that visitors can take inspiration and craft their own adventures.