What to pack for St Andrews and the Highlands

From the first tee to the top of a glen: a week that starts on the North Sea and ends in the Cairngorms asks for clothes that do not care what the sky is doing. Eight things, in the order you will need them.

There is a particular kind of Scottish trip that begins at sea level and ends somewhere near the clouds. It starts in St Andrews — a round on the Old Course, or a Sunday walk over it; a pier walk behind the red gowns; oysters on a rooftop as the light goes over the eighteenth — and then it turns north, out through the East Neuk villages and up the coast, across the Tay, into Angus and Perthshire and the long glens that run up to the Cairngorms, where the light is different and the weather comes from three directions at once. It is the best week Scotland has, and it makes one demand of the person taking it: that they dress for the country rather than the calendar.

Barbour has been solving that problem since 1894, when John Barbour started selling oilskins to sailors and fishermen in South Shields, and the jacket it became — waxed cotton, corduroy collar, a pocket for everything — has been the uniform of the Scottish estate, the Scottish sea and, lately, the Scottish golf course for a century. It is also the only coat that a grouse beater, a caddie and the Princess of Wales have all worn without irony. What follows is not everything you could take. It is the eight things that will do the whole trip, in the order the trip will ask for them.

1. The waxed jacket: Barbour Beaufort or Bedale — from around £300

Start here, because everything else is negotiable and this is not. The Beaufort is the longer of the two, cut for a day in the field with a poacher's pocket across the back and a two-way zip; the Bedale is shorter, cut for the saddle, and the one most people wear in town. Either will see you from the first tee at seven in the morning, when the haar is coming in off the bay, to a cliff walk at Kinkell and a pub in Anstruther by dark, and the wax means the rain runs off rather than in. Buy it in olive or sage; the navy is for Edinburgh. And accept that it will look better in ten years than it does today, which is the whole point of the thing.

2. The quilt: Barbour Liddesdale — from around £120

For the day the wax is too much. A quilted Liddesdale is what you wear for the walk to breakfast on the Scores, the museum, the spa, lunch on Market Street — the St Andrews days that are cold and dry rather than wet — and it goes under the wax on the glen days when the wind has teeth. It packs to nothing, which matters on the sleeper, and it is the piece the non-golfer lives in while the golfer is out on the Jubilee.

3. The knit: a Barbour lambswool crew or the Tisbury — from around £90

One good jumper does the week. Lambswool rather than cashmere, because it will be under a jacket and over a shirt and near a fire, and lambswool forgives all three. The cable-knit Tisbury is the one for the Jigger Inn after a round; a plain crew in a dark green is the one for dinner at the Adamson without the jacket. If you want the cashmere version, Johnstons of Elgin has a shop sixty yards from the eighteenth green, and Elgin is on the way to the Highlands.

4. The boots: Barbour Bede wellingtons — from around £70

You will laugh, and then it will rain in Glen Clova. A pair of Bede wellies in the boot of the car is the difference between a walk and a retreat, and in St Andrews they earn their place on the West Sands at low tide, on the coastal path after a wet week, and on the Sunday walk over the Old Course in November when the fairways are soft. Not for the glens proper — take walking boots for anything with a summit — but for everything below the treeline, which is most of the trip.

5. The scarf: Barbour tartan lambswool — from around £40

The cheapest thing on the list and the one you will wear most. A lambswool scarf in the Barbour tartan, or the plainer Classic check, goes on at Leuchars station and does not come off until you are back on the train. It is what the wind on the fourteenth is for; it is what the roof of the spa is for, afterward; it is what the Sunday pier walk looks like from the harbour wall. Buy two. One will be in the wrong bag.

6. The hat: Barbour wax sports cap or a lambswool beanie — from around £35

The wax cap for the golf — it turns rain, it stays on in a gale, and it looks right on the first tee in a way that a baseball cap with a logo does not — and the beanie for the glens, where the cold arrives from above. Between them they cover every hour of the week, and both go in a jacket pocket when the sun comes out, which in Fife it does more often than anyone expects.

7. The shirt: a Barbour tattersall or brushed-cotton check — from around £70

The trip has one dress code, which is that dinner is slightly smarter than the day. A brushed-cotton check under the jumper is the Fife uniform and does the whole thing: breakfast at Rufflets, the walk, the pub, and, with the jumper off and the collar open, a table at the Road Hole Restaurant, where smart-casual means exactly this. Two will see the week out; the hotels do laundry.

8. The bag: Barbour wax holdall — from around £150

Not the suitcase — that stays in the hotel — but the bag that goes with you: from St Andrews to the East Neuk for the day, from the car to the bothy, from the sleeper cabin to the taxi at Leuchars. Waxed cotton, leather handles, a shoulder strap, and big enough for the wellies, the second scarf and a bottle from Eden Mill. It also improves with weather, like everything else here, and it is the object that will still be in the hall thirty years from now, with the sand of the West Sands in the seams.

"Dress for the country rather than the calendar."

Where to buy

Barbour has stores in Edinburgh and Glasgow and stockists across Fife and Perthshire; the full range is at barbour.com with UK delivery, and the sensible thing is to have the jacket sent ahead to the hotel. What you will not find is a Barbour shop in St Andrews itself — so if you arrive without, the town's answer is Johnstons on Pilmour Links for the knitwear and Spoiled Life on Greyfriars Garden for the rest. And when the wax wears thin, which after a good week it will, Barbour's Wax for Life service will re-proof the jacket for a small fee; there is a drop-off in Edinburgh on the way home.

The trip, in order

St Andrews: the Old Course on a Sunday, the pier walk, the museum, the spa, dinner at the Adamson. Read: A perfect weekend in St Andrews.

The East Neuk: Crail, Anstruther, Pittenweem, a hickory club at Largoward. Read: The Hickory Golf Workshop.

North: over the Tay, up Glen Clova or Glen Shee, into the Cairngorms; Speyside and Elgin if the week allows. Read: Johnstons of Elgin.

Getting there and back: Read: The overnight train that takes you from London to St Andrews.

When to go: Read: St Andrews in the quiet season.

Know before you go

The edit: Waxed jacket · Liddesdale quilt · lambswool knit · Bede wellingtons · tartan scarf · wax cap and beanie · brushed-cotton shirt · wax holdall. Around £900 for the lot; the jacket is a third of it and lasts the longest.

Where to buy: barbour.com with UK delivery; Barbour stores in Edinburgh and Glasgow; stockists in Fife and Perthshire. Have it delivered to your St Andrews hotel and arrive without.

Re-waxing: Barbour's Wax for Life re-proofing and repair service, by post or at drop-off points; a jacket needs it every year or two of real use.

Sizes: Barbour cuts generously for layering; take your usual size if you plan to wear a jumper under it, one down if you will not.

Good to know: Wax jackets are not for the tumble dryer, the washing machine or the airing cupboard; hang them, wipe them, re-wax them. The smell of a new one fades in a fortnight.

Best time: October, when St Andrews is gold and the glens are red, and every item on the list gets worn in the same day.

In partnership with Barbour. This feature was produced with the support of Barbour. The selection, the words and the opinions are Visit St Andrews' own.