Getting to Islay – What You Really Need to Know
Islay's an island, which sounds obvious right up until it starts interfering with your plans. There's no bridge and no tunnel.
To get there, it's a boat or a plane, both of them running to somebody else's timetable, and you can't decide over breakfast that you fancy popping over.
That's not a warning, by the way. It's half the appeal. But it does mean there's an order to doing this, and it isn't the order most people reach for.
Book the ferry first. Then the bed. Then the tours.
We'd put money on you doing it the other way round, because almost everyone does — you find the hotel you like, you book it, and then you go looking for a crossing.
Don't. Car spaces on the Kennacraig ferry go months ahead in summer and around Fèis Ìle, and they go long before the rooms do.
A room you can move. A distillery tour, mostly. A vehicle deck in June you cannot move at all, and there's a particular flavour of misery in having a beautiful room booked on an island you can't get your car to.
Ferry, then bed, then tours. It's the least romantic advice on this site and it's the most useful.
For what it's worth, the crossing runs about £127 — two adults, one car, there and back.*
The crossing
CalMac take you from Kennacraig, out on the Kintyre peninsula, over to Port Askaig. Just under two hours. If the weather's with you, the Paps of Jura come up out of the water on the approach, all three of them.
We haven't done every ferry crossing in the world, so we're not going to tell you it's the best one. But the open water, the islands turning up one after another, the light coming off all of it — we'd be surprised if this isn't somewhere in the top ten. Go out on deck for it. Most people stay in the lounge with a coffee, and most people miss the whole thing.
One thing that's changed and catches people out: Port Ellen's terminal shut in June 2026 and isn't expected back before 2029. Everything lands at Port Askaig now, up in the north — so check which port your sailing actually goes to, and plan the first afternoon around where you land rather than where you meant to. Bunnahabhain, Caol Ila and Ardnahoe are your welcoming committee whether you planned them or not. If you're reading an older guide that has you arriving at Port Ellen, bin it.
Turn up earlier than you think
Vehicles want to be there thirty minutes before departure. Foot passengers, ten. Those are CalMac's own numbers for Kennacraig — but the one that actually binds is printed on your confirmation email, and it can be anything from five minutes to an hour depending on the sailing. Read the booking, not this paragraph.
Miss it and the space goes, straightforwardly. If there are cars waiting in the un-booked lane when check-in closes, yours becomes one of theirs.
Two things almost nobody knows, and both are worth having.
If you think you're going to be late, change the booking. It's free — online or on the phone up to two hours before check-in closes, and at the port right up until it does.
And if you miss check-in but the boat's still there, join the standby queue on the ticket you've already got. If there's room you go on the sailing you booked and nothing's forfeited. It's only once the boat's actually gone that a later one costs you a new ticket.
The weather gets a vote
Sailings can be delayed, diverted or cancelled.
We've chosen that word carefully. Not usually. Not frequently. Can.
Most of them run exactly as advertised. But this is the Atlantic, and somewhere between October and March it'll occasionally decide otherwise, and there's no arguing with it. The practical upshot is just this: don't put anything you actually care about in the few hours after you're supposed to land.
And if it does get cancelled
Two things will come and find you rather than waiting for you to go and look: CalMac's text alerts — route 09 is the Kennacraig one — and @CalMac_Updates. Sign up for the texts before you travel.
If you're bumped, you're looking at the next sailing with space, which in July might not be today. Loganair's only a fallback if you're on foot and can face going back to Glasgow for it — the flight leaves from there, and the car isn't coming with you.
Neither's a guarantee, and that's worth sitting with rather than getting cross about. It isn't CalMac being awkward. It's what living out here actually involves, and the people on Islay have been arranging their lives around it for generations — hospital appointments, deliveries, getting the kids to the mainland. You're borrowing a slice of this life for your journey. Book a first night you can move, leave the first day loose, and you'll take it the way the island lives it.
The drive's the long bit
Here's the thing nobody warns you about: it's not the ferry that eats your day, it's getting to the ferry.
| From | Distance | Time |
|---|---|---|
| Glasgow Airport | 97 miles | from 2¼ hours |
| Glasgow city centre | 106 miles | from 2½ hours |
| Edinburgh Airport | 145 miles | from 3 hours |
| Inverness | 163 miles | from 4 hours |
Two surprises in that table. Glasgow Airport is nearer than the city centre — it sits at Junction 28, already pointing the right way. And Edinburgh is a lot closer than people think.
Work backwards from the sailing rather than forwards from your front door. A ten o'clock boat means checking in by half nine, which means leaving Edinburgh by half six — and you'll want to know that now rather than at eleven o'clock the night before, which is when most people find out.
Check the A83 at the Rest and Be Thankful before you set off. It's the weak point on this road. When it closes you go down the Old Military Road under convoy control, which is the same distance but takes fifteen or twenty minutes instead of three. Rarely it's the long way round, and that's thirty miles. It's open and unrestricted as things stand — but it changes, and your sat-nav won't know.
But don't treat the drive as the toll you pay to reach the good bit, because it's one of the best roads in Britain and it'll take a whole morning happily. You run down the side of Loch Fyne with the water beside you nearly the whole way, up over the Rest and Be Thankful, and the further you go the emptier and more serious it all gets. Inveraray's the obvious lunch stop and it's earned it. There are oysters at the head of the loch if you've been sensible about your timings.
Leave early. Take three hours over two. Roll into Kennacraig with the crossing still to come instead of sprinting for it with your hazards on. The holiday's already going by then.
One thing for the sat-nav: CalMac give the terminal as PA29 6YF. It's a big rural postcode so the pin lands roughly — the terminal's signed off the A83 south of Tarbert.
Or fly
Loganair do Glasgow to Islay in about forty minutes. Islay's terminal is essentially one room, and you'll spend more of the trip looking down at the coast than you will inside it.
Low cloud and a stiff crosswind will interfere now and then. Just make sure you've sorted transport for the other end — the airport's out at Glenegedale with a fair bit of island still between you and wherever you're staying.
Getting the bottles home
Worth thinking about before you're stood at security with something you can't take.
Anything you buy at a distillery is going in the hold. Glasgow still runs the 100ml rule, so that's that. Glasgow's dropped the clear plastic bag; Islay hasn't, so coming the other way your small liquids still need bagging and out of the case.
The hold allowance is better than you'd expect, though. Islay isn't one of Loganair's restricted routes — Tiree, Campbeltown, Barra and the Orkney hops are capped at 15kg, Islay isn't. So you get the full fare allowance, up to 30kg on the top fare, and an extra bag is £25 if you book it online rather than at the airport. Loganair allow five litres a head.
And if you're doing the island in a day, Glasgow sometimes won't sell you spirits airside at all on a same-day return, because you'd only have to clear security again coming back.
There's a second way over
Oban to Port Askaig, via Colonsay. Longer, runs less often, and it brings you at the island from a completely different angle.
Worth knowing about, on the days it runs. Days and times on CalMac →
Getting about once you're there
Nobody has to drive. It's the question every group asks and no whisky site answers, and the honest answer is that five of our sixteen day plans work with no car at all — the three-distillery walk out of Port Ellen among them.
Islay's bigger than it looks when you're pointing at it on a map, mind. South end up to Bunnahabhain is the best part of an hour, and longer in practice, because you'll stop. Everyone stops.
Taxis. A handful of local firms rather than a rank outside every distillery. Book ahead in summer and during Fèis Ìle, and ask early if you want someone for a full day.
Buses. Genuinely better than people expect. They link the main villages and go past a good few distilleries on the way.
Hiring on the island is the obvious answer to a full vehicle deck, and it does work — but the fleets are small and they go the same way the ferry does. Sort it early.
Signal. Patchy the moment you're out of the villages. Get your maps downloaded before you come, then stop worrying about it.
The bit you can't plan
There's a moment the mainland lets go of you — Jura coming up off the bow, or the coastline sliding under the wing — and everything shifts down a gear.
You'll notice your phone's gone quiet as well.
* CalMac fare, two adults and a car, return, checked August 2026. Fares are seasonal.