Isle of Wight: Getting There and Accommodation

Late last year we visited the Isle of Wight, but I never quite got around to posting about it. I thought it might be worth sharing my experience and what we found to do there as other families might be thinking about where they could visit during this Easter break or the half term holidays in May.

Two things attracted me to Isle of Wight – one was that it was an island, so we were getting off the mainland – the nearest to abroad we would be going anytime soon. The other was that we managed to find reasonably priced accommodation to fit us all – a family of seven, which is often challenging.

I ended up finding a stationary caravan with three bedrooms on Airbnb and booked ferry tickets online. The tickets cost almost as much as the accommodation which I was not expecting.  There are three different locations that you can depart from that arrive at different locations on the isle of Wight and it is worth cross checking to make sure you are getting the best deal. We used Wightlink who were not any cheaper than any of the other options to book, but turned out to be incredibly helpful.  We had problems with our booking which meant that we would be sitting around waiting for our ferry for a few hours, their customer service officer re-booked our tickets at another port nearby that meant we could board the ferry as soon as we got there, they also waived the extra charge for us. I would definitely plan any future trip by looking at their prices first just because of the kindness and care they showed us.

The drive was uneventful apart from a lovely rainbow we saw and once we boarded the ferry we disembarked and found a spot to sit inside the ferry.  Hubby, Gorgeous and I ventured outside to take in the view which was lovely, but it was very cold, being October and we had to steel ourselves against the freezing wind.

The trip gave us beautiful views across the Solent straight of both Southampton as we were leaving and the Isle of Wight as we arrived.

Once we disembarked, the drive to our accommodation, which sat at the middle of the island was only about 20 minutes.  This is one of the things I like about the Isle of Wight, the island has plenty to do, but one of it is far away with the island being so small.

After driving around a bit and missing the turn a few times, we finally found the accommodation and settled in.  The caravan turned out to be good sized with three bedrooms and two bathrooms and an equipped kitchen. The kids were just happy that there was a TV and Xbox for them to play.

It turned out to be a good location to travel out from because it was so central and also a good place to come back to after a cold day sightseeing for some warmth and a comfortable bed.