The town-centre option
The best answer if you are here without a car
Apartments are the quiet workhorse of Orkney accommodation — 64 of the 198 properties we track — and they solve a specific problem better than anything else on the islands. A cottage in the countryside is wonderful and effectively requires a car. A hotel room puts you in town but takes away the kitchen. An apartment in Kirkwall or Stromness gives you both: a front door on a town street, a supermarket and a bakery within a short walk, and somewhere to cook what you buy.
That matters more in Orkney than the same sentence would elsewhere. Bus services here are built around school runs and commuters rather than visitors, so being car-free in a rural cottage is genuinely constraining. Being car-free in central Kirkwall is not constraining at all — the cathedral, the museums, the shops and the buses out to the Neolithic sites are all on your doorstep, and the airport is a short taxi ride. In Stromness you can walk off the Scrabster ferry and be at your door in minutes, luggage and all.
Apartments also suit the shape of an Orkney trip that involves the isles. If you are day-tripping to Hoy, Westray or Shapinsay, you want a base near the pier rather than a car parked somewhere for a week. And they suit shoulder-season visits, where a smaller space is easier and cheaper to heat than a rambling old farmhouse.
