United Kingdom
Foula is not merely remote — it is a place where remoteness itself becomes the defining experience. This tiny island, just five kilometres long and three wide, lies 32 kilometres west of the Shetland mainland in the North Atlantic, making it one of the most isolated inhabited islands in the British Isles. Its population, which has fluctuated between 30 and 40 in recent decades, maintains a way of life that the rest of Britain abandoned generations ago: sheep are gathered from the cliff tops by hand, peat is still cut for fuel, and the island observes the Old Julian Calendar for Christmas and New Year — celebrating Yule on January 6th and New Year on January 13th, a tradition that links these few dozen islanders to a timekeeping system the rest of Europe discarded in 1752.
Foula's physical presence is dominated by The Sneug, a 376-metre sea cliff on the island's western coast that ranks among the highest in Britain. The cliff face drops vertically into the Atlantic in a wall of Old Red Sandstone that turns golden in the evening light, and its ledges support one of Europe's largest colonies of great skuas — bonxies, in Shetland dialect — aggressive, powerful seabirds that will dive-bomb any walker who ventures too close to their nests. The island's five peaks, of which the highest is The Sneug, create a dramatic silhouette visible from the Shetland mainland on clear days, and the view from the summit — nothing but open ocean in every direction — is one of the most vertiginous in Scotland.
The birdlife of Foula is its primary natural attraction and the reason most expedition cruises include it in their itineraries. In addition to the great skuas, the island supports significant breeding populations of Arctic terns, storm petrels, puffins, and the red-throated divers whose eerie wailing calls are the soundtrack of summer evenings. The cliffs provide nesting habitat for fulmars, kittiwakes, and guillemots in numbers that, combined with the skua colony, make Foula one of the most important seabird sites in the Northeast Atlantic. Grey seals breed on the island's rocky beaches in autumn, and the surrounding waters are visited by orcas — the Shetland population of killer whales is one of the best-studied in the world.
Life on Foula is shaped entirely by the weather and the sea. The island's mail boat, the New Advance, runs from Walls on the Shetland mainland when conditions permit, but winter storms can isolate Foula for weeks at a time. The islanders maintain a small airstrip for the eight-minute flight from Tingwall, but even this is frequently cancelled by wind and fog. Provisions are ordered in bulk and stored against periods of isolation, and the island's generator provides electricity for limited hours. There is no shop, no pub, and no mobile phone signal — a combination of absences that, depending on one's temperament, represents either deprivation or liberation.
Foula is visited by expedition cruise ships during the summer months, with passengers landing by Zodiac on the island's eastern beach when sea conditions permit. The window for visits is narrow — June through August offers the longest daylight, the calmest seas, and the peak of seabird breeding activity. Landing is never guaranteed, as Atlantic swells can make the beach approach hazardous even in summer. But for those who do set foot on Foula, the experience is unforgettable: a place where human settlement persists at the very edge of possibility, sustained by stubbornness, tradition, and a bond with the land and sea that the modern world has almost entirely lost.