I need some Scotland trip-planning advice please! We've decided to go on a last-minute trip to Scotland in early January. I was hoping to go up the west coast a little bit, and then head over to John O' Groats, before coming back down along the east coast. However, we'll only have around 5 days and the weather is bound to slow us as well.

So I'm now thinking one of two options...

Trip 1...

Manchester to Fort William
Stay a day or so here and visit the Ballachulish area as well as there's a couple of film locations I want to visit (I'm sad like that!)
Head to Skye for a couple of days
Head back down to Manchester

Trip 2...

Manchester to Edinburgh
Lossiemouth/Inverness area for a couple of days
John O' Groats and Sutherland area for a day or so, before heading back down to Manchester via, arm, somewhere

I think the first option would be less driving and therefore more relaxing, but I've always wanted to do the whole tourist thing and see Loch Ness and John O' Groats even though I've heard people say there are much nicer places to visit

I'll be in an AWD car and will most likely fit winter tyres for the trip, but if roads are closed, that won't help etc. Any advice is appreciated.