On 30 June 1746, after the disaster of Culloden, Bonnie Prince Charlie crossed from South Uist to Skye disguised as Flora Macdonald's Irish maid, a tall and conspicuously unconvincing one. They landed near Kingsburgh and Macdonald escorted him by way of Portree for a brief, careful pause in the town. Charles Edward Stuart, the would-be Stuart king, was hunted by Hanoverian troops with a price on his head of 30,000 pounds, a sum that would have set up half of Skye for life. No one collected. From Portree he was spirited across to Raasay overnight, then back to Skye, then over to Elgol and finally to the mainland and a French ship. The Skye Boat Song romanticised the journey out of all recognition, but the path of it ran through Portree's narrow streets and the harbour where, on the day, no one informed.

Portree is small enough to walk in fifteen minutes. The central plaza is Somerled Square, named for the 12th-century lord who founded the Macdonald clan, and around it cluster The Granary, the Caledonian Cafe, Cuchullin restaurant, and several of the town's bars. The bus stand is here too, more a draughty perspex shelter than a station, but conveniently placed for both the pubs and the eating places. The Quay below is where the painted houses run along the water, with The Chippy, Cafe Arriba, Restaurant Rosedale and the Lower Deck. In high summer there are queues for fish and chips. There is a Co-op on the edge of town and a fuel station at the south end with surprisingly reasonable prices. The 24-hour Gulf garage is sometimes the last fuel for thirty miles in any direction.

Just south of town is The Lump, a wooded headland used for events, the Skye Highland Games (next on 6 August 2025), the Skye Live music festival (8 to 10 May 2025), and the Apothecary Tower. The tower is a folly of 1830, blown apart by a 1978 storm and rebuilt; climb its interior steps for a long view east across the Sound of Raasay to the island that gives the sound its name. Drive north on the A855 and you reach the Old Man of Storr, the 50-metre rock pinnacle exposed when a 20-mile-long landslide tore down the east side of Trotternish 10,000 years ago. From the road it looks like a finger raised against the sky. The hike up is signed as two hours but takes three; Walkhighlands suggests budgeting that for the round trip. Further north sit Kilt Rock and the Quiraing, the geological set pieces of north Skye.

Portree has more than fifty bed and breakfasts and they sell out. The town's status as Skye's only meaningful base for the island's tourism means everything books months ahead in summer, and the better places often book a year in advance. Citylink coaches arrive from Glasgow (915, eight hours via Fort William) and Inverness (917, three and a half hours via Loch Ness). Stagecoach Bus 52 brings travellers from the Armadale ferry pier. The town does ancestor research at the Skye and Lochalsh Archive Centre, with records back to the 17th century; the bulk are 19th century, the famine and clearance years when the island lost much of its population. Boat trips run from the harbour, looking for sea eagles and seals. The Isle of Skye Pipe Band parades on summer Thursdays at seven in the evening around Somerled Square. The skirl of pipes drifts down to the harbour, where the painted houses turn gold in the slanting light.