CoastShetlandNational Trust for Scotland4.5
Free entry for National Trust members
This place is cared for by the National Trust for Scotland, a separate charity. Under the INTO reciprocal visiting arrangement, National Trust members from England, Wales and Northern Ireland get free standard entry. Show your current membership card at admissions.
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Free to visit. The Good Shepherd IV ferry from Grutness and Airtask flights from Tingwall are charged separately.
Arrive on foot, by bike or by public transport.
No car park and no visitor cars. Arrive by the Good Shepherd IV mail boat from Grutness near Sumburgh, or by Airtask flight from Tingwall on the Shetland mainland; park at Grutness or Tingwall. Both crossings are weather dependent.
Fair Isle is the most remote inhabited island in Britain, three miles long and midway between Shetland and Orkney, home to about 60 people, two Stevenson lighthouses and the knitting tradition that carries its name round the world. The ornithologist George Waterston passed it to the National Trust for Scotland in 1954, and it remains a birdwatchers' place of pilgrimage: more than 350 species have been recorded, and the cliffs hold guillemots, gannets and puffins in summer, while the surrounding sea is Scotland's only Demonstration and Research Marine Protected Area. Iron Age settlements, Norse place names and a wartime German aircraft wreck dot the island, and the George Waterston Memorial Centre in the old school shows knitwear and island history. Reviewers speak of its wild beauty. Tips from visitors: boat and plane are both weather dependent so allow slack, Stackhoull Stores is the only shop and doubles as post office and cash point, and the Bird Observatory rangers offer free guided walks from May to October.
The Good Shepherd IV mail boat sails from Grutness near Sumburgh in summer, about two and a half hours with 12 passengers, booked on 01595 760363; Airtask flies from Tingwall year round with up to seven seats. The Bird Observatory runs a free ranger service from May to the end of October. Public toilets at the Observatory, the airstrip waiting room, the Hall and Stackhoull Stores.
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