[imagesource: Savills]

The past two years or so have done well to make a person feel cooped up and caged, with many of us wishing to break free and lead a radically different life.

Sure enough, there are options, but you’ll have to be extremely wealthy and accustomed to social isolation.

The far-flung Shetland Island of Vaila in Scotland is there for the taking, complete with a castle, a flock of sheep, a 12-metre whale skeleton, private beaches, and yards and yards of space, per Time Out.

The island, located on the northern tip of the United Kingdom and accessible by a 10-minute boat journey from mainland Shetland, is on the market for £1,75 million – roughly R34 million.

Evening Standard reported that besides the 757 acres of this “wild and beautiful part of the world”, the extraordinary land also comes with an 18th-century watchtower, a two-bedroom caretaker’s cottage, and a three-bedroom farmhouse.

Image: Savills

But the main gem has to be the 17th-century castle that you can call home:

Image: Savills

At 7 480 square feet, with six bedrooms and four reception rooms, the “extraordinary property” was originally a laird’s estate. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, however, it was used as a grand summer residence, hosting lavish parties for the island’s residents and employees (30 in 1901).

Image: Savills

It is still well-equipped to entertain, with its capacious Great Hall, furnished with original 19th century pieces and centred around an enormous arched stone fireplace. There’s also the morning room, with its own grand, carved wooden fireplace, and the conservatory, which has views over the sea.

Image: Savills

Vaila’s rugged landscape has been whipped into shape by the Norwegian and North seas, inky blue all around, and is home to orcas, dolphins, otters, and birds.

Image: Savills

The island was once home to Norwegian Viking chiefs but has more recently been a place for Richard Rowland and Dorota Rychlik to let their hair down.

They have lived and partied at Vaila since 1993, but feel it is time to move on and try something different elsewhere in the Shetland Islands.

Whoever next gets to call this incredible private island home is sure in for a massive treat, no deliveries included, of course.

[sources:timeout&eveningstandard]