Isle of Coll Scotland
United Kingdom
Frequently Asked Questions
At Arinagour, the island's only village, where tenders bring passengers ashore from small ships. The white front-street cottages, built in the nineteenth century, line a quiet inlet with a few yachts at anchor.
The core of island life: the shop that doubles as post office, the café where the world gets put to rights over a mug of tea, and the hotel whose garden runs down to the bay, known for its seafood plates. Bicycles can be hired at the post office or the community centre.
Walk or cycle to a beach, quite simply. The island can be crossed end to end in about twenty minutes by car, and the single-track roads suit easy pedalling. The Totronald reserve in the west takes one to two hours from the road.
Around thirty sandy beaches for fewer than two hundred residents. Crossapol in the south unrolls its dune-fringed curve; Torastan and Sorisdale in the north hide their coves among the rocks. Walking barefoot on sand nobody has touched for days is the real luxury of the call.
In fine weather the water takes on colours more tropical than Scottish — but the temperature reminds you of the latitude soon enough. Swimming is for the hardy, even in August. Pack for walking and looking rather than bathing.
An RSPB reserve on the west of the island protecting one of the last strongholds of the corncrake, a secretive bird whose rasping call carries across the meadows in early summer. The machair here fills with orchids and buttercups, with skylarks overhead.
Because the complete absence of street lighting earned it Dark Sky Community status in 2013, one of the first in the United Kingdom. That said, a cruise call happens in daylight and in summer, when the Hebridean night is very short: it is a local point of pride more than something passengers can experience.
Yes. Seals come readily close to the rocks, and in some summers the placid fin of a basking shark shows offshore. Nothing is guaranteed: it is an encounter, not a programme.
Yes, for families who like empty beaches and cycling. There are no attractions and no queues, and the call is built around walking and conversation. Children who need an organised programme will get less out of it.
Pounds sterling and English; Scotland issues its own banknotes, valid locally. Carry a little cash, as services are scarce. The best window runs late May to August, when the machair is in flower and the corncrake still calling.
