By Robin McKelvie
It’s an exciting time at Scottish Islands Passport and for anyone who loves Scotland’s glorious islands. The third and fourth books of the travelogue quartet have been published, offering island explorers a handy pocket-sized deep dive into the islands, their distinct communities and what each individual island offers.
The Scottish Islands Passport app is brilliant and rightly acclaimed. The travelogues sit perfectly alongside it to help with your island adventures year round. Each of the 72 islands featured on the Scottish Passport Islands app are now covered in the travelogues, so island completists will want to grab hold of all four. Each features 20 islands, with more popping up in the More to Explore sections.
The travelogues are just that. Yes you can whet your appetite flicking through them at home in anticipation of your holiday, but they are very much for using in the field out in the islands too. And you can now collect a brass rubbing stamp in your travelogue at each of the island partner locations, with the stamp network almost complete this year. The locations of the stamps can be found in the nearby stamps area of the app – just toggle the map to brass stamps, as well as on the Scottish Islands Passport website. Make sure when you’re getting your stamp to see what the Stamp Host partner organisations are up to, further enriching your visit. You can record your own impressions of the isles too in the pages at the back of the travelogues, with space for your sketches, notes, journeys and adventures.
Across all four travelogues the Scottish Islands Passport island-centred ethos shines through. The project always aims to support islands with what they do and they actually speak to communities as islanders are, of course, the real experts on their own islands.
The Scottish Islands Passport app and travelogues cover 72 inhabited, accessible islands – they engage with all the communities and encourage you to follow suit. Together they help you get closer to communities and to enjoy a more rewarding trip that benefits the people you encounter. With so many islands now covered why not break way from the main islands? Or at least for example after you’ve been to Skye enjoy a detour off to the Small Isles of Canna, Eigg, Muck and Rum.
Let’s look at those travelogues now in more detail. Meet the Makers has an island maker focus, delving into the world of the craft makers, artists and designers who call the isles home. Each of the islands include sections called Famous For and Ask An Islander giving hints and tips about what to explore when you’re there plus Meet the Makers featuring island businesses to visit and inspire. There’s also links to further local information to help you find out everything you need for your trip.
In this travelogue in Stronsay you’ll meet the Airy Fairy, Hazel, with her quilts and cushions, Marion Miller’s jewellery inspired by the ‘seas, shores and skies’ and the handwoven textiles of the Wyrd Weaver, which come from a Stronsay croft. The information you glean allows you to meet the makers, learn about their island journeys and then snare unique souvenirs and presents.
Shaping Our Islands takes a deep dive beyond the natural beauty of the isles to focus on their built heritage, the tantalising traces of mankind and its heritage. The isles after all have over 10,000 years of history, so there is plenty to explore. Famous For and Ask an Islander sections gives tips from locals to guide your time in the island and the Shaping Our Islands area gives ideas about where to explore more with places that helped shape the island communities into what they are today. Always noted are links to other local resources too.
Take Seil as an example. You’ll take a journey across the famous Bridge over the Atlantic in the travelogue and an ancient woodland with a secret ruined settlement. The focus on the built environment is refreshing, reinforcing the reality that the isles are not just a natural wonder playground for tourists, but real, living, breathing communities with serious heritage.
The first of the new travelogues is Eat, Drink, Explore. As it sounds it steers into the glorious world of island food and drink producers, with plenty of places to enjoy all that ultra fresh island produce. The sections Famous For and Ask an Islander whet your appetite about eat island and Eat, Drink, Explore features island produce and eateries to include in your itinerary with plenty of information too on other resources you can explore to be armed for your trip.
On South Uist the Eat, Drink, Explore travelogue leads you to what I reckon could be the finest salmon in the world – Salar Smoked Salmon, who smoke it here in their own kilns and win awards in the process. It’s got another classic in there – the Scandinavian Bakery in Lochboisdale. The travelogue also includes the legendary Polochar Inn. It’s an epic experience savouring fresh Uist lobster, sustainable estate venison and Stornoway Black Pudding here, then watching the sun set spectacularly over the standing stone outside. Sublime. Yet another magic Scottish Islands Passport moment.
The last of the remarkable Scottish Islands Passport travelogue quartet is Wandering Our Islands, which opens up the isles with a swathe of active adventures. Why drive when you can hike, bike and paddle your way around? We are talking slow and active travel, picking up travel stamps in the app as you go. Famous For and Ask An Islander gives you hints and nuggets of island information with the Wandering Our Islands section adding trails and locations to really explore each island, not forgetting all of the travel experiences and island businesses you can find in the app. This edition is perfect for helping find ways to collect your travel stamps in the app while in the islands!
Wandering Our Islands is information packed. I love that these travelogues shine light on some islands that you might now know so well, or may never even have heard of. How about Baleshare? This Outer Hebridean charmer tempts across a 350m causeway from North Uist and only measures eight square miles. A tidal isle, Baleshare is pancake flat and a joy to explore. The travelogue helps you make the most of your two-footed or wheeled time here. Wander the machair-fringed white sandy beaches, learn about the kelp industry and explore the Baleshare Special Area of Conservation.
With four great travelogues to collect now you’ve got more information on Scotland’s isles at your fingertips than ever before. Armed with these pocket-sized encyclopaedias, and the app – which lets you download islands to use offline – the isles blink temptingly before you. What are you waiting for?
The Scottish Islands Passport travelogues are available at numerous island stockists (the list is on the website https://islands.scot/the-passport/), as well as via Scottish Island Gifts online at www.scottishislandgifts.com/market/scottish-islands-passport.
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