Aviemore
Town · 2,689 residents
69Good
Good · better than 8 in 10 towns
Check Local Score out of 100 · 60 is typical for the country
Each arc is a topic, coloured by its score
What’s good
- 1 GP practice within a short walk
- 16 places to eat and drink
- Environment scores 81, well above the typical 60
Check before you view
- Radon: part of the area is in an affected zone, and a home test is cheap
- Transport scores 31, below the typical 60
The essentials
Everyday life
The area
Map outline: Official settlement boundary (National Records of Scotland)
Is Aviemore a good place to live?
Aviemore scores 69/100 overall, which the scorecard rates as good — 60 is typical for the country.
It stands out for health (83) and food & drink (81).
It scores lowest on transport (31).
Scores come from official data on safety, schools, transport, prices, health, food & drink and the local environment, for Aviemore in Scotland, each measured against the national average.
Summary of Aviemore
Aviemore looks like what it is: a Highland village built around outdoor life, where the high street mixes outdoor gear shops and cafés with the steady footfall of hillwalkers, skiers and cyclists rather than commuters. At just over a thousand people, it feels small and self-contained, and the median age of nearly 50 tells you this isn't a place full of young families and first jobs — it's settled, often retired or semi-retired, with people who chose the mountains over the city.
There's only one school in the immediate area, so this isn't a place you move to for a choice of catchments — you go in knowing what you're getting, and for most people here that's a trade-off already accepted in exchange for the setting. Housing sits well below what you'd pay across much of Scotland's more populous corners, with a median price a little over £219,000, and the council tax band D figure is close to the national Scottish average, suggesting this isn't a village artificially inflated by holiday-home pressure in the way some Highland spots are. It's a C+ on housing overall, the one noticeably softer grade in an otherwise strong set — worth sitting with, since everything else here (environment, health, nightlife, connectivity) scores well above the Scottish average.
The numbers back up the obvious: this is a village built for time outdoors. Sixteen green spaces for a population this size is generous, and the environment grade of A reflects a place genuinely oriented around its landscape — the Cairngorms on the doorstep rather than a park at the end of the road. The A+ on nightlife is a little surprising for somewhere this size, but Aviemore has long punched above its weight for a village its size when it comes to bars and life after dark, likely a legacy of its role as a ski and hillwalking base rather than a dormitory village. Full fibre reaches 60% of properties, a reasonable position for a rural settlement, and the A+ health grade suggests access to care is genuinely good here, not just adequate. Population density is a fifth of the Scottish average, which is the whole point — space, quiet, and hills rather than crowding.