The private Welsh island perfect for adventure holidays (2024)

The island has had many guises over the centuries. First it was a boat-building base for the herring industry, had a brief spell as a Victorian bathing station and became an ocean science teaching facility for Bangor University, and finally settled in its latest incarnation as a private holiday island newly available to hire for those wishing to indulge a swashbuckling sense of adventure combined with more than a dash of 21st-century luxury.

It’s only a spit’s distance from the small town on Anglesey, confusingly called Menai Bridge, to which it is linked by a rough stone causeway just wide enough to allow a car to pass.

• The best British island escapes
• 15 of the best things to do in Wales

It is late morning when my husband and I make our arrival, carefully timed to coincide with low tide so we can drive to the front door of Ynys Faelog’s primary residence, a low-slung house of the same name, with a peppermint green exterior and slate tiled roof, all set about by gardens, shingle pathways and glass-fronted terraces. At high tide, and for a few hours on either side, the causeway is largely submerged by the sea, rendering it impassable to cars, though a walkway that is always accessible means guests are never entirely marooned.

A smaller, secondary house, Ynys Faelog Cottage, occupies the southern corner of the island and can be rented separately (but without access to the main house facilities) or in conjunction with the main residence for house parties of up to 22 guests. A little work remains to be done to the exterior of this property, but it’s on the cards.

On our arrival the weather is doing its best to be as unpredictable as possible: a glimmer of sunshine rips through hurly-burly clouds, rain showers come and go, a strong wind flings the sea into a maelstrom of ripples and peaks. On the shoreline ducks dabble among the seaweed, a couple of hardy swans brave the currents, gulls bend and weave in the bluster. No one comes to Wales for the weather, but you do come for this — a bracing sense of the great outdoors that is as magnificent on wild, windswept days as it is on calmer, sunny ones.

From the main terrace at Ynys Faelog the view takes in Bangor’s distant Garth Pier and the silhouette of Great Orme’s Head near Llandudno, sweeping then across the strait to the mainland and round to Menai Bridge. This view is almost as good from the inside, captured by a succession of large picture windows brilliantly insulated against even the slightest hint of a draught (believe me, as an aficionado of north Wales I know this is not always a given in Welsh houses).

Ynys Faelog’s owners — who bought the property in 2021 and launched it at the end of last year — have embraced this house with gusto, transforming what is essentially not the most beautiful of buildings into a super-comfortable pleasure pad.

Above the kitchen sink a sign saying “House of Fun” invites guests to get stuck in, fire up the outdoor hot tub, light the barbecue or the fire pit, have a game of tennis on the island’s private court, pootle around the seashore with nets and buckets, or cosy up inside, where there are six double bedrooms and a main living room comprising a sitting, dining and kitchen area with huge sofas, armchairs and window seats.

Should you forget that the sea lies just outside, the house’s maritime theme serves as a reminder: lots of blue, breezy colours and driftwood-textured floors; box-framed shells and prints of lobsters and lighthouses set among large black and white photographs of sand dunes and Anglesey scenes; brass mermaid tail hooks on the backs of each door. When the promised wooden decking is installed on the terraces, the outside will feel as shipshape as the interior.

There are gimmicks too. In the enormous bathroom of the principal bedroom suite I connect my phone to a bluetooth mirror with speakers (who knew there was such a thing?), sink into a golden slipper bath carefully positioned in front of a giant plate-glass window framing the sea and sail away to a blast of Rod Stewart.

Perhaps my only niggle is the swimming — or lack of it in an island setting such as this. Currents are ferocious in the Menai Strait, so while paddling, wallowing and splashing around at the island’s edge is fine, striking out for a longer swim is inadvisable.

But there are beaches not far away for that — great, wide sweeps of dune-backed sand or smaller, cliff-cradled secluded bays — ringing Anglesey’s coastline. Everyone has their favourite. To the north and east from Menai Bridge via the picture-perfect seaside town of Beaumaris (don’t miss its castle) are the family-friendly Benllech Beach and the remote and pebbly White Beach. To the south is the wildly beautiful Llanddwyn Beach, backed by the pine trees of Newborough National Nature Reserve and with sprawling mainland views of the mountains of Snowdonia.

To the west is my personal favourite: the sporty, action-packed Rhosneigr. We stride out along the huge, sandy expanse of Traeth Crigyll, one of the town’s two beaches, where brave children bare their legs in icy rock pools and braver surfers tackle the swell. Directly behind the sand dunes, at RAF Valley, fighter jets ominously practise their routines.

We refuel at the Oystercatcher beach bar and restaurant on the edge of the dunes, which serves a wide range of “Welsh tapas” — whipped Welsh feta with flatbread, crab croquetas and so on (mains from £16; oystercatcheranglesey.co.uk). In summertime it’s filled with surfers and swimmers straight off the beach, but in early spring it’s mainly dog-walkers and those who’ve come to enjoy Anglesey out of season.

Alas I don’t have a horde of young adventurers with me on my trip to Ynys Faelog but I can imagine what I might do with them if I did: surfing, paddleboarding and kayaking; an adventure boat tour with Rib Ride (ribride.co.uk) to Puffin Island (1.5 hours, £45pp) or the dastardly whirlpools of the Swellies on the Menai Strait (40 minutes, £25pp). I would also encourage a game of hide and seek at the hidden gardens at Plas Cadnant, and it’s great fun to ramble along a section of the 135-mile coastal path and make a detour to explore the spectacular South Stack lighthouse and its visitors’ centre — reached via 400 steps down the cliff side — on an islet off Anglesey’s most westerly tip.

But in this instance we are no Famous Five or Secret Seven, even if we do have our faithful four-legged friend in tow. We spend time outdoors and an afternoon occupied at the glorious National Trust house Plas Newydd, a classical and gothic mansion where a Rex Whistler mural depicts a fanciful vision of the Menai Strait landscape.

Our Anglesey adventure draws demurely to a close with a glass of wine in Ynys Faelog’s upstairs sitting room where a bank of roof-set panoramic windows embraces that sensational view. No lashings of ginger beer here — just lashings of dramatic Welsh rain beating against the glass to remind us that UK holidays should always be about more than the weather.

This article contains affiliate links that can earn us revenue

Pamela Goodman was a guest of Ynys Faelog House, which has seven nights’ self-catering for 12 from £2,546 (ynysfaelog.co.uk). Ynys Faelog Cottage has a week’s self-catering for 10 from £967

Sign up for our Times Travel newsletter and follow us on Instagram and X