This paper aims to understand how effective co-design activities can be carried out with remote and rural communities. Taking a combined ethnographic and participatory approach in our project situated in the Scottish Highlands and Islands, we discuss two iterative phases of scoping, idea generating, and prototyping and refining. Throughout these accounts we reflect on how creative design methods enhanced shared understandings of local contextual issues; drove us to identify people and resources to enrich the participatory design process; and strengthened their ownership over the project. Building on this we propose a series of recommendations for design researchers to stimulate engagement with communities from remote and rural geographies, support their participation in activities that aim to understand past challenges and successes, and enable them to contribute to the design and development of new outcomes through sustained collaboration.