Falkland Islands travel guide
The flight to Mount Pleasant is either epic (30 hours via Santiago de Chile and Punta Arenas) or expensive (£2,222 return from Brize Norton) or both, and most visitors arrive on cruise ships. Though 2012 was a record season (and the 30th anniversary of the war with Argentina), only 7,800 land-based tourists flew in (4,000 of these from Britain) compared with 33,600 cruise passengers. The latter have the obvious advantage of being able to see the changing character of the coast and generally get to disembark in one or two outlying islands.
But the Falklands is a special, strange place and those who do make the effort often become repeat visitors. Stanley provides a nice homely stopover on voyages that revolve around wild seas, icebergs and penguins. Pubs, a post office, a cathedral, an excellent museum and good gastronomy at places such as Lafone House and the Waterfront Hotel (a new restaurant, Cahoots, opened in October 2013) mean that a stay is not just quirky, but actually very pleasant too. Out in the “camp” – as locals call the countryside – and on the smaller islands (there are 740 islands in total), life is lived at an old-world pace, all cooking is home-cooking as there’s no alternative, and the temperate climate can make for ideal retreat conditions.
Like a small, British-toned patch of Patagonia, the Falkland Islands have a dreamy landscape: yellowish tussock grass, rugged cliffs, few trees (and these few are bent by the winds), turquoise seas, sphagnum bogs and exposed moorland. Drives out to Goose Green, Berkeley Sound and Bluff Cove Point allow for a stimulating combination of battlefields, wildlife watching (the Falklands is home to five penguin species, cormorants, southern elephant seals, black-browed albatross, steamer ducks and whales and dolphins) and chats with local farmers and labourers. Fighter jets on training sorties occasionally disturb the peace, but don’t complain too much as the locals are perhaps understandably proud of their military protectors.