Charter boats and tours sailing out of many of the harbours in the Outer Hebrides offer trips to the Flannan Isles, each of which has its own unique identity and plays an important part in Hebridean history and heritage.
Mystery lovers should head for the Flannan Islands - the site of one of Scotland’s great unsolved stories. Sitting 20 miles to the west of Lewis, it was here that an entire crew of lighthouse keepers disappeared at the turn of the 20th Century never to be seen again. Uninhabited since the automation of the lighthouse in the 1970s, the Flannans are now home only to some wonderful wildlife, with birds including puffins, fulmars and kittiwake nesting here and whales and dolphins commonly spotted in the surrounding Atlantic waters.
The Flannan Isles have captured the imagination of poets, songwriters, writers and filmmakers. The recent film The Vanishing (2018) by director Kristoffer Nyholm was based on the story and stars Gerard Butler and Peter Mullan. "Flannan Isle," by poet Wilfred Wilson Gibson, a song by the band Genesis, "The Mystery of The Flannan Isle Lighthouse" (1967) and The Coffin Road by Peter May have all been inspired by the magical Flannan Isles.
