The BBC’s Shipping Forecast is 100 years old – and many of the regions featured provide holidays that will blow your mind!

Dogger, west or southwest four or five, occasional rain. Good. German Bight, five or six in a northwesterly direction, sometimes seven at first…’

These are the strange but familiar musings of the BBC Radio 4 announcers who four times a day, but most romantically around 40 minutes after midnight, read the Shipping Forecast issued by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency.

First broadcast on radio on the then BBC Home Service 100 years ago this week, the forecast is much more than just a weather service for fishermen and freighters. It’s a journey around the remote, foam-stained edges of the British Isles and beyond; best heard under the duvet or with hot chocolate in hand.

Yet there is a surprising amount of land present in the 31 areas mentioned in the Shipping Forecast. You’ll be familiar with the options below, but you might be surprised at where you can stay without getting your feet wet.

Go for Malin

Dogger, west or southwest four or five, occasional rain. Good. German Bight, five or six north-west, first occasionally seven…’ These are the strange but familiar musings of the BBC Radio 4 announcers who, four times a day, but most romantically around 40 minutes after midnight, deliver the Shipping Forecast read published by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency

The coastline of the Malin Shipping Forecast Area covers the north coast of the island of Ireland and south-west Scotland and includes the Inishowen Peninsula in the Republic of Ireland, a treasure trove of beaches and mountain ranges hugging Lough Foyle.

Located on the edge of the lake in County Donegal, the Redcastle Hotel is an airy hotel with cream accents, a golf course and green grounds. It’s just a 40-minute drive from here to Malin Head, the country’s northernmost point, where you’ll find a ruined Napoleonic signal tower called Banba’s Crown, near vast cliffs teeming with red-billed jackdaws and a 75-metre-deep gorge. , aptly named Hell’s Hole.

DETAILS: Double rooms from £151 bed & breakfast, (redcastlehoteldonegal.com).

Take it easy in Fastnet

Pushing the boat out: Galley Head Lightkeeper’s House in County Cork, located in the Fastnet shipping region

The Fastnet shipping region stretches along Ireland’s southern coastline.

You can’t get closer to the roaring tide than by staying at Galley Head Lightkeeper’s House in County Cork: a whitewashed vintage car with a huge kitchen and views straight over the cliffs.

If it all feels too isolated, the village of Clonakilty is a 20-minute drive away.

It is home to Michael Collins House, a museum to the Irish independence leader who was born nearby.

DETAILS: Two night stay in Galley Head from £416 self-catering (irishlandmark.com).

A taste of the German Bight

The German Bight is ‘perhaps the most famous Shipping Forecast region of them all’, says Rob, and ‘covers much of the western coastline of Danish Jutland’. In the photo: the town of Lokken in Jutland

Perhaps the most famous Shipping Forecast region of them all, the German Bight covers much of the western coastline of Danish Jutland. It may be a blisteringly windswept vantage point of the North Sea, but the wide sand dunes and beaches are virtually endless and there is unusual accommodation near the town of Henne in the form of the Molle A Badehotel. It was built in the 1930s by Poul Henningsen, one of the most influential Scandinavian designers of all time.

DETAILS: Doubles at Henne Molle A Badehotel from £211, B&B (hennemoelleaa.dk).

Brittany first

The Phare de Kerbel Lighthouse (above) is on the border of the Plymouth and Biscay forecast areas

Right on the border between the shipping areas of Plymouth and Biscay lies the Phare de Kerbel lighthouse, a two-hour drive from Nantes in France.

It offers the rare opportunity to stay on top of a lighthouse. The original lantern tower, 25 meters high, offers stunning views of the Brittany coastline at Riantec and has been replaced by a new structure at the top, which can only be reached by 126 steps.

DETAILS: £607 per night for two adults self-catering (pharedekerbel.com).

Cause a storm

The Torre de Hercules, a stone lighthouse tower overlooking the endless Atlantic Ocean in the Fitzroy Shipping Forecast Area

There was a lot of fuss in 2002 when the Finisterre shipping region was renamed Fitzroy, after Robert Fitzroy, founder of the storm warning system that was the 19th century prototype of the Shipping Forecast.

Fitzroy covers the far northwest coast of the Iberian Peninsula and includes the chic and airy Noa Boutique Hotel in A Coruna, Spain. Here huge waves roll in from the Atlantic Ocean, which would have been watched by a young Pablo Picasso, who lived in the city as a child.

Today there is a walking trail that you can follow on a self-guided tour. From the hotel it is a 20-minute drive to the Torre de Hercules, a stone lighthouse overlooking the endless Atlantic Ocean.

DETAILS: Doubles from £101 B&B (noaboutiquehotel.com).