Shetland Islands stay safe · Shetland Islands travel safety advice
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Shetland Islands travel safety advice
Shetland Islands travel safety advice
From a crime perspective, Shetland is an extremely safe place. If you are mugged, robbed or treated with anything other than courtesty during your stay, you can consider yourself extremely unlucky. Outside Lerwick, it is common for doors to be left unlocked, and it is perhaps some indication of the general lack of crime that the theft of someones' wallet from an unattended house in Yell made the number one spot on the local radio news for three days. Drug use is reputed to be on the upturn, and CCTV cameras have recently been introduced in Lerwick, but Shetland is still a very quiet and peaceful place when compared to other locations in United Kingdom (and the rest of the world).
The main hazards in the islands tend to be environmental rather than human derived. Bonxies (great skuas) and other sea birds can be aggessive if you approach their nests during the breeding season, and will attempt to dive-bomb you. The best solution is to keep to the paths, but holding an arm or a stick above your head will generally keep them off. Take care next to clifftop areas, as outside the main tourist locations there are no warning signs or fenced-off areas, and these can be unstable. At Hermaness there are warning signs telling you not to wear waterproof trousers, as the consequences of falling over while wearing them and then sliding could be very severe indeed. Costal waters can be very rough and tides strong, so you are better accompanied by a local guide when kayaking unless you are very experienced and know the area.
For emergency services (police, ambulance, fire brigade, coastguard) ring '999'.
As part of United Kingdom, Shetland is covered by the National Health Service with free health cover for British and other EU nationals. The main hospital is the Gilbert Bain in Lerwick which provides most healthcare services including accident and emergency . In the case of a real emergency, anyone, regardless of nationality would be provided with assistance free of charge.
Tap water is safe to drink. There are no endemic diseases requiring special vacinations. In areas frequented by sheep, watch out for ticks which can occasionally carry disease. There are no poisonous snakes or other creatures.
The Most Frequently Asked Travel Questions about Shetland Islands
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Shetland Islands Travel Guide from Wikitravel. Many thanks to all Wikitravel contributors. Text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0, images are available under various licenses, see each image for details.