Christmas 22’ Adventure | Isle of Wight
I always wanted to visit the Isle of Wight but for some strange reason it never happened... My brother, Jakub and his family are a huge fans of this place. They persuaded us to go on a big family trip to the island to celebrate Christmas together. We decided to book an AirBnb, as it would probably be too cold for camping in our vans ;) I’ve never stayed in AirBnb before and was eager to try it out. My sister-in-low, Kasia smashed it and found this amazing place that also didn’t cost an arm and a leg!
It was a newly converted quirky yet stunning & peaceful Cart Shed, originally traced back to 1500's. It was very warm and cosy indeed. The cottage is based in a Shorwell, a little village surrounded by rolling hills and full of character cottages. It had everything we needed, fully equipped kitchen, enough space to sleep 6 people. And also allowed doggos! It also had a lot of old musical instruments, huge amount of board games and a roulette table. Owners left us some eggs, cupcakes, bread and butter and other bits and pieces. Everything was just amazingly tasty and beautiful! The only thing we didn’t use was a hot tub because it was raining almost every evening.
More info on our AirBnb cottage here.
(I am not sponsored by AirBnb this is just my pure and honest recomendation)
More about the island...
Isle of Wight
The Isle of Wight is an island off the south coast of England. It’s known for its beaches and seafront promenades. Dinosaur remains and fossils can be seen in areas like Compton Bay and Yaverland Beach. On the island’s western point, The Needles are 3 huge, white chalk rocks, guarded by a 19th-century lighthouse.
We had to actually catch a ferry from Southampton to get to the Island. It only takes 45mintes. Crossing went pretty smoothly, you can buy food and drinks on the ferry. It’s not the cheapest, especially if you own a van. It’s cheaper for cars or foot/bicycle passengers. We used Red Funnel ferry, there is also a Red Jet ferry which doesn’t allow cars, but looks super speedy, maybe next time we use that if we decide to go on a cycling adventure.
The Island is beautiful. It’s not huge, it only takes an hour across, and it’s only 30 minutes top to bottom to drive the island. There is so much to do there. I loved these cute villages with old cottages and small churches. Before we went, I did my research and found out that there is a huge amount of abandoned places on the island. Unfortunately you can’t access all of them without permission. I will definitely look into that for our next trip! Because we went in December, some places were shut. To be honest I was a really lazy tourist this time. I let my brother to take the lead with driving us around to places that he wanted to show us. We ended up visiting a lot of sandy beaches! Went to the Needles, unfortunately for us we were too late and the viewing point and a cafe were shut, but we made the most of our trip, saw a beautiful sunset and my Jakub flown his DJI drone over the picturesque cliffs.
The weather was rather pants at times, but we didn’t mind spending a little family time together in our cosy cottage when it rained. We bought a lot of food! So we had to eat it..... so our holiday contained a good amount of resting and eating and then driving and walking around and sightseeing everything we could once it stopped raining. Best combo ever!
This island needs to be explored more! Hopefully in good weather. I found a super cool place with a hidden shoe house which I added onto my bucket list for next time when we visit IOW.
Here are some photos from our trip. taken with my iPhone and my trusty Fujifilm x100s camera
