I’m Carmen, and moving to Shetland probably wasn’t the obvious next step for me. I didn’t grow up here, I don’t have family connections to the islands, and I’d never spent my childhood dreaming about moving to a remote Scottish island. But I was at a point in my life where I knew I wanted something different.
Carmen Gatti moved to Shetland in October 2025 and is enthralled by exploring, discovering and understanding life in the islands. Here, she explains how she fell in love with Shetland and why she swapped hurly-burly and traffic for wildlife and adventure.
Life before Shetland
Before Shetland, I had a busy life in West Yorkshire, where I grew up. I was working full time in management, while studying for a degree alongside it, and although there was nothing wrong with my life, I had just started to feel like I was constantly rushing from one thing to the next.
I knew that I wanted more time outdoors and more space and a slower pace of life.
Somewhere along the way, Shetland entered the picture!
My only visit to Shetland was in July 2025, and I instantly fell for it. There was something about the landscape, the wildness, the huge skies and the feeling of space that made me wonder what life might actually be like here.
Eventually, I decided to find out.
I moved in October 2025, and what started as a huge leap into the unknown has slowly become home. I now live in the South Mainland with my partner Josh, and we’ve recently bought our own old house, which we’re slowly making our own.
Outside of work, you’ll usually find me outdoors: walking, camping, swimming, exploring the coastline or generally finding an excuse to get outside. And when we’re not doing that, I’m probably at home with a trowel in my hand, or attempting to renovate something.
Sharing the moving experience
I started sharing snippets of our life on Instagram through my page stillgoingnorth, initially just as a way of documenting this huge change in my own life. But it’s grown into something I really love.
A lot of what I share is about Shetland, but it’s also about what it’s like to build a life somewhere completely different from where you grew up. I share the beautiful bits, of course, but also the everyday reality like the weather, the wind, the quiet weekends, the lack of shops or just the little adventures.
I think one of the things that makes my perspective on Shetland slightly different is that I’ll probably always see it through the eyes of someone who chose to come here. I’m still discovering new places, still having those moments where I stop and think I actually live here, and still learning what island life really means.
Which is what I try to capture in my content. Just my experience of discovering this place, building a life here and figuring out what it means to call somewhere so far from home, home.
Promote Shetland will be sharing some of Carmen's posts on our social media pages, and you can follow her every step of the way @stillgoingnorth.
Start planning your new life in Shetland
If Carmen's story inspired you to consider moving and starting a new life in Shetland you are probably wondering what it's really like to live in the islands.
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