How About the Isle of Persons?: British Isles 2025, Part 2

Lisa often plans our trips. (This is all me this time, my bride is “on assignment”…) She’s great at it, and she likes doing it. There are specific moments in the planning process that I play a key role in, but she has said for years that in another life she would have been a travel agent, so mostly I stay out of her way. That said, who doesn’t like taking a break once in a while. So, this whole trip was my baby, soup to nuts. Flights, lodging, restaurants, I took all of it off her plate. (I am not trying to play the hero here; if you know me well this should sound more ominous than heroic.) I learned everything from her so really there isn’t a lot of difference in me doing. Excceeeepppt, I am unhealthily attracted to the corners of maps. There are a couple of spots I’ve had my eye on for years, and this trip was an ideal opportunity to check out the Isle of Man.

Granted, the “ideal opportunity” still involved some careful timing of multiple ferries and three different cities; when you’re dealing with micro-nations you have to grade on a curve, ok? Still, the pieces of the trip were dovetailing nicely. We landed in Dublin like we said last time, and took a bus to Belfast. Next we’d be taking the “Isle of Man Steam Packet” to Douglas on the Isle of Man and then ending up on another… er… steam packet?… to Dublin. What is a steam packet, you ask? Well, it goes back to the 16th century and… whatever, it’s an antiquated term for the ships that brought mail and stuff to the island, and now it’s your typical ferry for cars and people. The trip takes 2-3 hours depending on which leg you’re talking about; there are also flights but at least one member of my family doesn’t care for really small airplanes. So, what’s the deal with the Isle of Man? What’s the attraction?

My dirty secret is that I knew very little about the place before we made our plans to go. I first poked around it years ago along with places like Inishmore and Islay (both small islands although not nations). What I knew back then was that it had a scattering of the old megalithic sites we enjoy visiting, aaaaannd they speak English. However, by the time I was actually setting this trip up I knew that the weather was that same crisp, cool weather as the rest of the British Isles, the terrain looked absolutely beautiful, and there were just enough historical curiosities to keep us interested if we end up feeling tourist-y. Plus, there’s the curiosity of the “nation” of the Isle of Man. Even more than Ireland or Scotland, Isle of Man exists in a liminal state, with its own governing body and kinda-sorta self rule, but they use the pound as their currency and still kind of “collective bargain” with Great Britain, e.g. they also are not part of the European Union. They have leveraged their strange legal existance to become a tax haven, not that this pays off for the average tourist.

We arrived in the capital town of Douglas, picked up our rental car, and headed for Port St. Mary on the southern end of the island. We were booked into a charming bed & breakfast, Carrick Rooms, which was honestly one of the nicer places we’ve stayed in quite awhile. Charming hosts, a comfortable room, and centrally located in walking distance to dining and transport. We didn’t use the car at all on at least one of our days. Instead, we checked off an extra bucket list item thanks to a famous literary inspiration – a genuine steam engine. Tell you all about it…. shortly.