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Jersey: The Island That Changed Why I Travel

Image of two boys playing on Image of the beach at Portelet Bay, Jersey, UK.

A childhood crossing to Jersey taught me that the best destinations can never be found on any map

Jersey, channel islands - 8 min read

"Sometimes the good feelings you return from a trip with, can be the souvenir that stays with you the longest."

Through The Mist

When I was very young, we took a small ferry through a curtain of sea mist off the coast of France to the small island of Jersey — one of the Channel Islands, and a place that, at the age I was, felt less like a travel destination and more like a dream.

Going to Jersey felt as though we had travelled to a very different place — a Shangri-La, if you will. My mother’s love for romantic destinations and my father’s love of nostalgia had brought us here. Even though the ferry crossing was only short, it felt as though we had travelled to a land of pirates and a place where cars were fewer than seagulls.

We stayed in a B&B in a fishing village that had a little beach, and its own tower that looked like a mini castle. It was a place where sun mixed with mist, where warm picnic rugs sat on cool sands, and the fresh smell of the sea mingled with freshly cut sandwiches and tea poured from a flask. To me, this was a land of mystery.

A little beach

Every day until mid-morning, the village would be wrapped in sea mist. The air was cool, and the seagulls felt ever-present. I have never forgotten how mesmerised I was by how different everything looked — the view from our room felt more like a dream than a holiday. The sea breeze was laden with the smell of the deep ocean after the tide had withdrawn, leaving behind small tidal pools filled with even smaller creatures. This for me was perfect. A world on my scale. A new set of experiences all wrapped up into a mini adventure.

Like clockwork, in the afternoon the sun would break through the mist, and the beach was transformed — becoming a magnet for all the young children and families on the island, who took over the beach and filled the world with little people, just like me. In this new world of the sunny beach, each child seemed to arrive equipped with their own colourful sandcastle set — a bucket and a spade — and some well-dressed children also came with their own new sunglasses. My mother was in seventh heaven as she paraded both my brother and me to the beach in our new striped swimsuits. This new little world felt like it had fallen straight from the pages of a Peter and Jane book.

These days seemed to last forever. My brother and I played at the beach into the twilight hours. I couldn’t help wanting to discover more of this new place with my parents. I felt like a young Mercury with wings on my feet, and the island was like a siren calling to all curious minds, drawing you in.

A fishing village had its own heartbeat

Even though the buildings and the streets in the fishing village were old, the mood was always busy. Every business opened early and their doors closed late — the fishing village seemed to be simply charged by the organic presence of the sea. The island had a special sway. It was like a simple dance that everyone knew, and no one got out of step. The long summer days cast a spell over everyone who lived or visited there, and the island’s people moved through it with an unhurried, choreographed ease — governed, it seemed, only by the tides.

"The narrower the streets became,
the closer we felt to the people."

All hands on deck

This island gave an embrace that was bigger than its small streets. In the village, the narrower the streets became, the closer we felt to the people. This place felt like it had left both England and France far behind and replaced it with a humanity that had no flag. We saw no celebrities, nor royalty. What we saw instead was a humble, unaffected love for this island — one that even a small boy could feel.

The island seemed to insulate you from the outside world, not just by tides and sea, but by feelings, folklore, and mystery — all tied and wrapped together into its own pleasant, endearing culture. This was how the fishing village functioned as one being: everyone had a purpose, and no one was left out.

The great pantomime

To me, each person from the little fishing village was like a performer in a small theatre company, putting on a summer pantomime — constantly swapping and changing hats to make the story work. Each had several character roles of their own, each with a different voice and a purpose to play out. This didn’t bring perfection, as there were too many things to remember and too many hats to wear. However, what was missing in perfection was made up for in purpose and warmth.

Just like a pantomime, the island was filled with crooked smiles, big beards and bad haircuts — which made this place heave with character and humour. This, to me, was the island’s magic and its purpose. This collective spirit made the smiles wider and the laughter deeper. It was the thing that changed everything. This was alchemy at its best.

The playfulness was infectious. And one of the best things about this holiday was getting the playful version of my parents back again. Instead of watching over us, as they always did, they dethroned themselves and stepped back into simply being a part of our family. At the beach, my father would don a captain’s hat — something Dean Martin would have worn — bought from the village store, and he would sculpt our poorly made sandcastles with the focus of an architect. My mother would pamper my brother and me, and playfully play football, chase, and fly kites with us. Finding this time just to be with us was their surrender. For them both, this unfolding from the pressures of work, this return to simple togetherness — that was the real gift of travel.

The world the war left behind

My father loved history. And so on another misty morning, instead of winding our way down to the beach for another day of sea creatures and sandcastles, he decided to take us all on a tour of the island’s historic mega-structures — great brutalist constructions of concrete that still squatted on the cliffs. These enormous gun emplacements were built on the island by the Germans in World War Two, to repel the British should they ever come back across the Channel.

My father was certain I would be impressed by them. Instead, I was frightened. These buildings felt entirely out of step with the land of little people I had come to know — enormous, cold and strange, like sunken ships that had washed up on the shore, clearly not from this place. History, I felt, had pressed itself against this little island and left a bad mark.

But even that contrast taught me something. It showed me that places carry their full history — the beautiful and the brutal alike. And it made the warmth of the village — the laughter, the pantomime, the kindness — feel all the more extraordinary by contrast.

What the mist was hiding

Jersey has something you can’t find on a map — a deeper, intrinsic beauty that lives inside the people and the culture. To find it, you have to slow down. Jersey is an island that reveals itself not in grand gestures, but in quiet ones. Its real currency is in how it makes you feel. The island’s soul is not found in any landmark or attraction, but in its people — in their crooked smiles and their deep laughter and their absolute, unshakeable sense of purpose. That, I think, was what was hiding in the mist.

My father had told us this trip was going to be a fun holiday in the sun. He was right, of course. But it was something more. It opened my young mind to what travel could be: not a list of places to see and boxes to be ticked, but an accumulation of feelings, sensations, encounters — small moments that together create something permanent. A cornerstone of memory.

Since then, travel for me has never been about postcards. It is about people. It is about how people see and treat one another — and how that, more than any landmark or view, shows you the real character of a place. This is what Jersey gave me, all those years ago. And I have been chasing that feeling ever since.

Planning your visit to Jersey, Channel Islands

dont miss

St Brelade's Bay for families, and the seafood at any harbour-side restaurant.

Getting There

Regular ferry crossings operate from Poole and Portsmouth with Condor Ferries, taking 3–5 hours. Flights are available from most UK airports, often under an hour.

Best time to visit

May to September for the warmest weather and long summer evenings. Spring is quieter and the island is extraordinarily green.

Where to Stay

The north coast fishing villages offer the most character — look for small guesthouses or B&Bs rather than resort hotels for the authentic island experience.

Good to know

Jersey has its own currency (Jersey Pounds, equivalent to GBP), its own distinct tax rules, and a culture that feels wonderfully, stubbornly its own.

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ABOUT KEVIN MURRANT

Kevin is a travel writer and storyteller based in Sydney Australia. He believes the best destinations reveal themselves slowly - and that it is always the people never the postcards that make the place unforgettable. follow his stories at kevinmurrant.com

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