Lighthouse living on a shoestring

Calling all would-be hermits: how about a small, simple place to live that's about as far away from everywhere else as you can get?

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See also: The UK's most spectacular sea views

A one-bedroom flat within a lighthouse is available to rent in Thurso, on the north coast of Scotland, and is the perfect place to get away from it all.

Commissioned in 1953 and built in 1958, Strathy Point Lighthouse was the first in Scotland to be powered by electricity. It was decommissioned in 2012, after a change in the Pentland Firth shipping lanes and a downturn in leisure and fishing traffic.

It's in an unbelievably dramatic location, on the tip of a peninsula at the northernmost part of Scotland between Cape Wrath and Joan O'Groats.

It has, of course, amazing views along the coastline of northern Sutherland to Dunnet Head, the most northerly point of mainland Britain, and waves crash on the rocks right outside.

It's near to amazing white-sand beaches and excellent surfing, as well as the Munros of Ben Loyal and Ben Hope - for bracing hikes. But it's not quite as far from civilisation as you might imagine, at just three and a half miles from the old crofting town of Strathy, and 23 miles from much larger Thurso. You can even pick up a ferry to Orkney nearby.

The flat itself is a studio, but a large one, and is available for a short-term let at £495, with a month's deposit, through agent Igloo.

It has a parking space, and is being offered with or without furniture. And the new tenant won't be completely cut off from the rest of the world - unless they want to be - as it has a phone line and working broadband.

So while it might be the perfect place to finish off that novel, for example, avoiding social media might be a challenge.