Shetland: The Wild, Windswept Islands at the Top of the World

There is a place that sits so far north on the map that cartographers once had to place it in a small box in the corner just to fit it on a page of the British Isles. Shetland — an archipelago of more than a hundred islands, only fifteen of which are inhabited — floats between the North Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, closer to Bergen in Norway than to Aberdeen in Scotland. It is a place of extraordinary contradictions: brutal and beautiful, remote and welcoming, ancient and alive. If you have never thought about visiting Shetland, this is your sign to start planning. And if you have already been, you know exactly why this post exists.

Where Is Shetland and How Do You Get There?

Shetland lies approximately 170 miles north of the Scottish mainland and about 200 miles west of Norway. The main island, simply called Mainland, is home to the capital, Lerwick, which is the northernmost town of any significant size in the United Kingdom. The archipelago consists of around 100 islands in total, with the most visited including Mainland, Unst, Yell, Fetlar, and Bressay.

Getting to Shetland is part of the adventure. You can fly from several Scottish airports, including Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Inverness, with the flight to Sumburgh Airport on the southern tip of Mainland taking just over an hour from Aberdeen. Alternatively, NorthLink Ferries operates an overnight service from Aberdeen to Lerwick, a crossing of roughly twelve to fourteen hours depending on conditions. Many travelers choose to fly one way and take the ferry the other, treating the sea journey as an experience in itself rather than simply a means of transport. Watching the sunrise over the grey Atlantic from the deck of a ferry as Lerwick slowly comes into view is one of those travel memories that stays with you for years.

The Landscape: Raw, Rugged, and Utterly Unforgettable

The landscape of Shetland does not ease you in gently. It announces itself immediately and without apology. There are no trees to speak of — the wind has seen to that — and the moorland rolls across the islands in great sweeping expanses of brown, amber, and deep green, broken by dramatic cliff edges, sheltered voes (sea inlets), and glittering lochs. The light here is unlike anywhere else in Britain. In summer, when the “simmer dim” stretches twilight across the sky from ten at night until three in the morning, the landscape takes on an almost otherworldly golden quality. In winter, the Northern Lights occasionally sweep across the sky, and the darkness between storms can feel ancient and absolute.

The cliffs at Eshaness on the west coast of Mainland are among the most dramatic in the British Isles. Red and black volcanic rock drops sheer into the sea, and the power of the Atlantic, which has been building momentum across thousands of miles of open ocean, crashes against the stone with a force that you feel in your chest. At the Drongs — a cluster of sea stacks off the Eshaness coast — fulmars and gannets wheel in the updrafts while grey seals bob in the swell below. This is nature on its own terms, entirely indifferent to whether you are impressed or not.

The Hermaness National Nature Reserve on the island of Unst takes you to the very top of Britain. From the cliffs at Hermaness, you can look out over the sea to Muckle Flugga lighthouse, perched on a rocky outcrop that represents the northernmost point of the United Kingdom. Puffins nest in the clifftop turf in their thousands during summer, and great skuas — locally called bonxies — patrol the moorland with fierce territorial authority, diving at anyone who strays too close. Standing at Hermaness on a clear day, with the lighthouse below and nothing but open ocean stretching north toward the Arctic, you feel the curvature of the earth in a way that is hard to articulate but impossible to ignore.

Wildlife: A Nature Lover’s Paradise

Shetland is one of the finest wildlife destinations in Europe, and its relative inaccessibility has helped to preserve ecosystems that have long since been disrupted elsewhere. The islands host internationally important breeding populations of seabirds, and in summer the cliffs are alive with noise and movement in a way that can feel almost overwhelming to the senses.

Puffins are perhaps the most beloved of Shetland’s birds, and they can be seen up close at several locations including Sumburgh Head, Noss, and Hermaness. These compact, comically dignified birds return to their burrows each year with clockwork reliability, and watching them come and go with beakfuls of sand eels is an endlessly entertaining way to spend an afternoon. Gannets are more dramatic — enormous, angular birds that fold their wings and plunge into the sea from great heights, hitting the water like white arrows. Guillemots and razorbills pack onto narrow cliff ledges in dense, jostling colonies, while skuas hunt relentlessly across the moorland and sea.

But Shetland’s wildlife goes far beyond birds. Otter sightings are common along the coastline, particularly in sheltered voes where they come to wash salt from their fur in freshwater burns. These are not shy, tourist-habituated animals — they are genuinely wild otters going about their business, and if you are patient and quiet, you can watch them hunt, play, and groom from remarkably close range. Orca — killer whales — pass through Shetland waters, and while sightings are never guaranteed, they are regular enough that the local Orca Project maintains a network of watch points and an online notification system. Minke whales, bottlenose dolphins, white-beaked dolphins, and harbour porpoises are all seen with varying regularity throughout the year.

On land, the iconic Shetland pony is practically a symbol of the islands. These sturdy, thickset little horses evolved over centuries to survive the harsh climate on minimal food, and they are perfectly adapted to the landscape in a way that makes them look as though they grew out of it. You will find them grazing on open moorland, unperturbed by passing walkers and vehicles, their long forelocks swept sideways by the wind.

History and Culture: Deeper Than You Might Expect

Shetland’s history stretches back more than 5,000 years, and the evidence of ancient occupation is scattered across the landscape in a density that would be remarkable anywhere in the world. The Neolithic village of Jarlshof, near Sumburgh on the southern tip of Mainland, is one of the most extraordinary archaeological sites in Europe. Here, layered on top of one another like the pages of a history book, you can see evidence of continuous settlement from the Stone Age through Norse occupation to a sixteenth-century laird’s house. Standing in the ruins of the Norse longhouses at Jarlshof and thinking about the generations of people who lived and died in this wind-battered corner of the world is a quietly profound experience.

The Norse influence on Shetland is deep and pervasive. Shetland was under Norse rule for over 600 years and was only pledged to Scotland in 1468 as part of a dowry arrangement — a transaction that the Norse king never actually completed, leaving the islands’ status politically ambiguous for centuries in ways that Shetlanders are still quietly proud of. The Old Norse language, Norn, was spoken in Shetland until the eighteenth century, and its vocabulary lives on in place names, dialect words, and local terms for weather, landscape, and farming. The Shetland dialect itself remains distinct and alive, with its own cadences and expressions that reflect this layered linguistic heritage.

The most visible celebration of this Norse heritage is Up Helly Aa, held on the last Tuesday of January in Lerwick. This annual fire festival culminates in the burning of a full-scale replica Viking longship by a torch-lit procession of hundreds of costumed guizers — the main group dressed as Viking warriors following their chief, the Guizer Jarl. Up Helly Aa is not a tourist creation or a heritage theme park event. It is a genuine community festival, organized entirely by volunteers, with a year of preparation behind it and an intensity of local pride that you can feel in the crowd. Attending Up Helly Aa is one of the great British cultural experiences, and if you have the opportunity, you should not pass it up.

Food and Drink: Fresh, Local, and Quietly Exceptional

Shetland’s food culture is built on the same qualities as everything else on the islands: honest, direct, and of genuinely outstanding quality when you find the good stuff. The seafood is exceptional. Shetland mussels, langoustines, brown crab, and lobster are all harvested locally and served in restaurants and pubs across the islands with minimal fuss and maximum flavor. Shetland salmon, farmed in the cold, clean waters of the voes, has a worldwide reputation and is exported to restaurants across Europe.

Reestit mutton — salt-cured mutton that is then dried — is one of Shetland’s most traditional foods, and it shows up in local soups and stews with a distinctive, intensely savory flavor that you either love immediately or need a second helping to fully appreciate. Shetland beef, raised on the mineral-rich moorland grasses, is tender and full-flavored, and local lamb has a similarly distinctive character that reflects the landscape the animals graze on.

For drinking, the Shetland Distillery near Lerwick produces a range of spirits including Shetland Reel gin, which has won international awards and is worth taking home a bottle of whether you are a gin enthusiast or not. The Lerwick Brewery produces ales and beers that are available across the islands, and the local pub culture — particularly in Lerwick — is warm, unpretentious, and very much alive.

Things to Do in Shetland

The question of what to do in Shetland is not really the right question. A better question is how much time you have, because the islands reward slow, exploratory travel in a way that is genuinely rare. You can fill days with walking, wildlife watching, visiting archaeological sites, sea kayaking, fishing, cycling, or simply driving the single-track roads and stopping whenever something catches your eye, which will be often.

The Shetland Amenity Trust runs a network of heel-and-toe footpaths across the islands, and walking the coastline in particular offers constantly changing views of cliff, beach, and moorland. Brindister, the Ness of Hillswick, and the walking routes around the Keen of Hamar on Unst — a unique serpentine landscape with Arctic-alpine plants found almost nowhere else in the world — are among the highlights.

Sea kayaking around the voes and cliff coastlines is increasingly popular and gives you access to sea caves, sea stacks, and wildlife encounters that are simply not possible from land. Several operators offer guided trips for various ability levels, and paddling silently into a kelp forest while a grey seal watches you from a few metres away is the kind of experience that makes other holidays feel slightly inadequate by comparison.

The Shetland Museum and Archives in Lerwick is unexpectedly excellent — a genuinely world-class local museum that covers everything from the islands’ geological formation through its maritime history, Norse past, and modern fishing industry. It is the kind of place where you go for an hour and emerge three hours later, blinking in the light, having gone significantly further into the history of these islands than you expected.

Practical Tips for Visiting Shetland

Shetland’s weather is notoriously variable, and the standard advice — dress in layers, bring waterproofs regardless of the forecast, and accept that the weather is part of the experience rather than a problem to be solved — applies even more here than elsewhere in Scotland. The wind is ever-present and can be ferocious, but it also clears the air in ways that produce visibility stretching for fifty miles or more on a good day.

Accommodation ranges from basic self-catering cottages and camping bods (traditional stone agricultural buildings converted for walkers and budget travelers) to comfortable hotels in Lerwick and excellent bed-and-breakfast guesthouses across the islands. Booking well in advance is strongly recommended for summer visits, particularly in June and July when the simmer dim draws visitors from across Europe and beyond.

Car hire is available from Sumburgh Airport and in Lerwick, and having your own vehicle is by far the best way to explore the islands at your own pace. Inter-island ferry services connect Mainland to Yell, Unst, Fetlar, and Bressay, among others, and these short crossings are inexpensive, frequent, and often accompanied by wildlife sightings if you spend the journey on deck with your eyes open.

Why Shetland Gets Under Your Skin

People who visit Shetland once tend to go back. This is not a coincidence. There is something about these islands — the quality of the light, the directness of the landscape, the friendliness of a community that has learned over centuries to value its visitors without depending on them — that lodges itself somewhere and refuses to leave. Shetland does not try to be anything other than what it is. It does not perform its wildness or package its history for easy consumption. It simply exists, at the edge of the known world, going about its business in the way it always has, and inviting you to slow down enough to actually see it.

Whether you come for the puffins and otters, for the Norse longships and Stone Age villages, for the seafood and the gin, or simply for the sensation of standing at the top of Britain with the Atlantic below you and the Arctic somewhere above you in the dark, Shetland will give you something you did not know you were looking for. That, perhaps more than anything else, is the best reason to go.