Puffin standing among sea thrift on a grassy clifftop

Shetland Islands

Fair Isle

The southernmost Shetland island, halfway to Orkney: seabirds, migrant birds and the home of Fair Isle knitting.

Welcome

Fair Isle lies alone in the sea halfway between Orkney and Shetland, 24 miles from the Shetland Mainland, and it is the southernmost of the Shetland islands.

The Norse settlers called it Fridarey, the island of peace. The National Trust for Scotland has owned it since 1954, and around 60 people live there.

It is famous for three things: its birds, its knitting and its shipwrecks. Seabirds breed on the cliffs and migrants stop on their way across the sea, and birdwatchers come for both. The Bird Observatory, rebuilt after a fire in 2019, reopened in 2025 and is the main place to stay. Fair Isle knitting took the island's name round the world, and the genuine article is still made here. Getting there is part of the trip: the mailboat Good Shepherd IV sails from Grutness, near Sumburgh, in about two and a half hours, and small planes fly from Tingwall in about 25 minutes.

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The Daily for 6 November, from Scotland with love. An avenue of tall beech trees frames a leaf-strewn path in autumn light.

A little further outJarlshofFour thousand years of settlement at Shetland’s southern tip, one layer on another.167 min by roadSee it

The round walls of a wheelhouse below the laird's house, Jarlshof.

Before you go

By ferry or plane, and both must be booked ahead.

The Good Shepherd IV takes 12 passengers and about two and a half hours from Grutness Pier, near Sumburgh, and in summer sails once a fortnight from Lerwick; it does not carry cars. Flights leave Tingwall, six miles west of Lerwick, three times a week and take about 25 minutes, with a weekly flight from Sumburgh from April to October.

Getting there: Ferry from Grutness, about 2.5 hours; flights from Tingwall, about 25 minutes.
Booking: Essential on both; the ferry takes no cars.
Stay: The Bird Observatory, and others on the island.

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Where it is

Fair Isle, Shetland.

Directions

Nothing of ours in this part of the map.

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What we have written about it and more in Shetland.

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