The Traitors, Its Gay Winners and the Scottish Castles You Can Stay In

From a bisexual host in the Highlands to a run of gay winners, The Traitors has a queer streak. Here is how to live like a Traitor in a Scottish castle.

Alan Cumming, who hosts The Traitors US from a castle in the Scottish Highlands, has called it “such a queer show,” and the record backs him up. Cumming identifies as bisexual, and the UK editions have produced a run of gay winners.

The castle itself is a private estate and not a hotel, and it is hired out for weddings and for filming. A group that wants the same mix of firelight, a long table, and a loch outside the window can still have it by renting a Highland estate or a castle for the week.

This guide starts with the show’s queer history and moves on to how to build a game of your own.

A Show With a Queer Streak

Cumming is Scottish-American and has described himself as bisexual since coming out in 1998. After concluding that the early seasons did not include enough queer people, he pushed for more and told Parade that the number of queer contestants tripled between seasons two and three. Speaking to BuzzFeed about season three, he said two of the winners were queer.

The UK editions have their own record. Alan Carr, who is gay, won the first Celebrity Traitors as a Traitor and raised £87,500 for Neuroblastoma UK. Sebastian Croft, best known as Ben Hope in Heartstopper, won the second Celebrity Traitors alongside Romesh Ranganathan, and the two split an £83,000 pot between their charities, with Croft’s half going to Choose Love.

Croft was the fourth gay winner of a UK edition, after Carr, Stephen Libby, and Leanne Quigley. Croft has offered a theory for the pattern. In his view, gay people learn to read rooms and survive in them, a set of skills that carries over into the game.

“I saw a post about how you don’t have to be gay to win The Traitors, but it’s kind of mad that so many people are. One of the top comments was about how you learn to read rooms, and you learn to try and survive.”

The Castle Behind the Show

The castle is Ardross Castle, a 19th-century Scottish baronial house near the village of Alness. It has hosted both the UK edition of The Traitors since it launched in 2022 and has since been home to The Traitors US seasons three and four.

Ardross is a private estate and not a hotel and is hired out exclusively for weddings and filming. The contestants do not sleep there either, staying at a hotel nearby. For a group that wants a place of their own in the Highlands, the options below are our handpicked alternatives.

Hiring a Highland Estate for Your Own Game

Montclare Estate covers 10,000 acres of the Highlands near Cannich, an hour’s drive from Inverness, and is let to one group at a time. Twelve bedrooms across three buildings sleep up to 24 people. The Estate Lodge, a restored Victorian building with four-poster beds and open fires, holds seven double bedrooms. The estate is also home to White Cottage and The Green House, each a short walk away, which are home to a spa, gym, and further leisure rooms.

For a group that wants to run its own game of Traitors, this certainly has the setting for it. A resident chef cooks for the group, and meals and drinks are included, with an enhanced wine list at a supplement. The games room has billiards and a cinema, the whisky room hosts tastings led by the Highland team, and the dance hall holds cèilidhs.

Outside, the loch has a private beach, a beach hut, and a boat house, and the Rock Spa has a sauna and hot tub for the morning after a late vote. The season shapes the plan, with stalking and fishing in autumn, days on the water in summer, and a Highland Christmas by the fire in winter.

A Castle Entirely to Yourselves

While Montclare is a Highland estate lodge with sprawling grounds, you may be looking for the additional sense of grandeur that comes with a real castle.

Aldourie Castle stands on the shore of Loch Ness, in the same corner of the Highlands as the original filming location, and it offers comforts its first residents could never have imagined. The Baronial castle is about 300 years old, complete with twelve en-suite bedrooms and estate cottages to host an even larger party. Five hundred acres of gardens, woodland, and meadows surround it, and the walled garden supplies the castle kitchen.

Evenings gather around the great hall, where a fire is lit before arrival and dinner is served at a table laid for the one party. Down by the loch, the boathouse has a terrace over the water and opens for early swims and yoga, and a sauna yurt sits in the trees for anyone who has braved the cold. The Steadings add a wellness space, a whisky tasting room, and a dance hall, and days can be filled with paddleboarding on the loch or a falconry display.

The castle can be had for a single night, staffed only for the one party, with every room, stair, and fireplace held for the group, as set out in A Night in a Scottish Castle Entirely to Yourself.

Inverlochy Castle for a Hotel Stay

For a castle stay without hiring a whole property, Inverlochy Castle sits between Ben Nevis and Loch Linnhe and is listed as a five-star hotel. Rooms are located either in the castle itself or within its walled garden, and dining centers on the Seasgair restaurant, the communal Mary Shaw table, and the Factors Inn country pub, with Michel Roux Jr. hosting occasional demonstration dinners.

Queen Victoria is said to have called it ‘the most beautiful place’ she had ever visited.

Choosing Between the Options

 

A group that would rather stay in England can hire a manor house instead, such as Arlington Hall in Suffolk or Halverton Hall in Shropshire, both covered in Where to Stay in the English Countryside, From Country House Hotels to Private Manor Houses.

A Highland Castle Stay for LGBTQ+ Travelers

Same-sex marriage has been legal in the UK since 2014, and LGBTQ+ people in the UK have a range of equal rights and protections from discrimination. A hired castle or estate adds a practical point, since the group has the property to itself for the stay. A group planning a wedding can find inspiration in our Luxury Gay Wedding in Scotland itinerary.

Plan Your Highland Castle Stay With Out Of Office

A stay can be a private hire week or a single night in a castle or a hotel room in one. Itineraries in Scotland are tailor-made around the traveler’s dates and pace.

To start planning, contact our specialists with your dates, the size of the group, and the castle that appeals; or, let them dream up some options for you.