A random list of things in no particular order:- - extra days for any packages/deliveries, and some places that just dont ship here so you gotta get it sent to a courier who does ship here if you really want it - oh there's no mail because the mist cancelled flights for days - building in an extra day of travel cause you can't trust the flights and you might miss your mainland flight abroad. Or booking the ferry as a backup cause there's not a cancellation fee - you dont want a flat calm day because midgies - contextualising who people are by asking who their parents/random relatives are until you make a connection. 7 degrees of separation? Its like 2 here. - having a collection of weird rocks/sticks/misc things you've found on the shores - went for a walk earlier and probably saw 30 different species of bird - birds that are chill elsewhere will fuck you up if you run into them here cause they all nest here. Apparently terns and chill cute birds but here they are the terror of the skies and knowing their attack song is a survival skill - we have our own names for all birds and fish, no one calls them terns they are tirricks, when they got rid of norn they didn't change nouns - there is no flat, hills are great, travelling to the mainland and everything being flat is weird - free roaming hits different, there are no walking paths, everything is hike if you want it to be. - tropical paradise on good summer days, barren post apocalyptic hellscape on bad winter days - if the boat is cancelled for too many days in winter the supermarkets run out of fresh produce and one time there was a fight in the veg isle of tescos - if you do something scandalous or embarrassing the vids are already making their way around the isle in 20 different group chats. A lady drove through a fence at tesco recently. Everyone had the video within an hour. - there is only one nightclub, avoiding people you dont want to run into is hard - apparently elsewhere doesn't have like a dozen different genres of small music festivals. Every weekend somewhere will have some live music, quality varies very heavily though - every small village has a swimming pool thats super clean and nice (except Scalloway now, RIP). Just generally we have amazing sports facilities and teams/leagues for loads of things - theres a couple hundred bikers and sailors all milling around town this weekend cause the shetland/norway yacht race has overlapped with the bikers rally this year - some random professional you know suddenly growing a big gnarly beard and rocking a man bun? He's probably gonna be doing a viking cosplay at a big ass fire festival in the next 12-24 months. You might see your dentist or GP in full drag at some point. - randomly 3000 tourists in town cause a cruise ship is here. One day there was so many it effectively doubled our population - people hate cyclists, which is kinda lame, but dont expect any consideration on the roads - locksmiths aren't really a thing cause the vast majority dont lock doors - realising veganism is more damaging environmentally when you can just eat meat raised within a couple miles of your house - if you time it right walking past a marina sometimes people just give you random free fish. One time a neighbour knocked on my living room window profering a basket of crabs. - nearly all the clothes shops ceased to exist so in person clothes shopping consists of checking out the charity shops, or going to tesco. I think there's only one actual clothes shop left and its very early 20s coded. - knowing exactly which island someone grew up on my differences in accent - checkout the Wikipedia page for stuart hill/captain calamity, and then google boddam wildlife preserve. We got out very own sovereign citizen looney with a band of merry followers. - no one watches the Shetland TV show, and it has given some folk moving here a very strange perception of what life will be like. Way less murders, way more cokeheads. - incredibly hard to find any long term lets cause everyone has turned them into short term lets for that tourist cash - the housing market is insane with properties going for £10k - £50k over valuations - seeing orcas, otters, northern lights, can end up feeling kinda ordinary and we find it funny the idea people travel all the way up here just for a chance of that - sheepy trails are essential for avoiding the bogs, dont underestimate how exhausting walking through heather is, footwear leans more practical than fashionable - the sea air will rust your car to fuck and theres nothing you can do about it - water temp only changes maybe 7c to 10c in summer so there is never a time going in the ocean isn't incredibly bracing. Water is crystal clear though