Tangier Island
Incorporated Town On Tangier Island, Accomack County, In The Chesapeake Bay; Accessible Only By Boat Or Light Aircraft · Tangier, Virginia
A working watermen's town on a scatter of low marsh islands in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay, twelve miles from the nearest mainland and reachable only by boat or light aircraft. Tangier has been continuously settled since the eighteenth century, and because the water kept it apart, it kept things the mainland lost: a distinctive local speech that linguists have studied for generations and that visitors often mistake for something older than it is, a crab industry that still defines the working year, and a town laid out along paths barely wide enough for the golf carts and scooters that do the job cars do everywhere else. There are no traffic lights. Houses stand close together on the highest ridges with family graves in the front gardens, because dry ground is scarce. That scarcity is the island's defining problem: Tangier is losing land to erosion and rising water, and the question of its long-term future is discussed nationally rather more than it is on the island. Visitors come for the day on the ferry, eat crab, walk the lanes, and go back on the afternoon boat.
Tangier Island, Accomack County, Tangier, Virginia, 23440, United States
The island is a town, not a site, and has no opening hours. THE ACCESS IS THE CONSTRAINT: passenger ferries from Onancock and Reedville in Virginia and Crisfield in Maryland run SEASONALLY, roughly late spring to early autumn, take about an hour to ninety minutes, and are cancelled for weather. Most day trips allow a few hours ashore and one boat back. Restaurants, shops and accommodation are largely seasonal. Confirm the schedule with the operator before travelling.