Why did I Choose Whitby?

Because, I have never fallen as quickly or thoroughly in love with a place, since first visiting Puerto Viejo over a decade ago. 

Sunset over Whitby Rail Station, January 2025

 I hopped off the train and strode purposefully toward the pier,toward my lodgings for the next four days. The seaside resort town was awash with the amber glow of sunset, and I had minutes to spare before oranges gave way to purples, then blues, then black in the night sky. 50 meters from the station, I turned around, grinning at the world and snapped my first photograph in Whitby, North Yorkshire, England. The glowing still image captured everything that I cannot articulate here...so I won't try too hard.

"So, why Whitby,"

a friend recently asked. I must admit, that much like Puerto Viejo de Talamanca, on the southernmost tip of the leeward side of Costa Rica, "Whitby" was at first just a word I heard once in passing. 

It's on a body of water I wanted to see, the North Sea. It photographed well online, and was close to other places that had been on my radar. Whitby also has the interesting feature of the river Esk, which runs forever to the sea, and is somewhat protected by a man-made pair of walls that save the mouth of the town from constant buffeting by sea gales and rough surf. 

 

Another reason is my love of old religious buildings. The former Catholic Whitby Abbey looms atop the right-side clifftop, 199 steps above town. It is a testament to the will of King Henry VIII. When he didn't get his way, catholic churches are burned and the Church of England was in place to replace them. This abbey took 250 years to complete (before the burning that is)! 

Goths and lovers of the occult and macabre have always found Whitby, as Bram Stoker set much of Dracula in this gothic town. Saint Mary's Churchyard is the vision that the mind's eye conjures as young Mina Harker is whispered 'bloofer lady' by an undead child, of Count Dracula's siring. Wooo, spooky. The cemetery is absolutely magnificent! Headstones that have been wind-swept for centuries are sometimes legible, and sometimes a brailized knobblyness that is beautiful to behold. The power of headwinds and the salt sea are visible at every turn.

But the most obscure reason that I chose Whitby, is that 2 years earlier I had my first Cornish Pasty at the Cornish Bakery in Bath--a few hundred miles south, and upon returning home to the states, I searched for every location of the Cornish Bakery in England. From that search I compiled a list, and started planning my return, with a goal of eating at least one pasty in the city or town I selected. Silly, right? Anyway, Whitby had both access to the sea and a Cornish Bakery.

It turned out that it was also proximal to at least two friends I'd met in past visits (in York and Durham), was a good pause between grim and arty Manchester, and the home-base of my beloved HUFC, Hartlepool.

So, arriving at this resort town in the low season, I did not find throngs of tourists and holiday-makers flocking to the beach. I found a few students, some weekenders from surrounding Yorkshire and Durham, and a host of friendly locals who were ready to show a visitor what makes their home so special. My home base was the Pier Inn, but I also found warm welcomes at:

• every single pub and bar (particularly the Buck Inn, in which I now have a standing invitation to join a Monday night pub quiz team, of some renown)
  
• the goth shop (this is the place to be for the largest Goth gathering in the north...and don't get me started on the Whitby Krampus parade!), 
• the charity shops, and 
• various places I popped in to catch an FA cup match (sadly my Pools had 2 games postponed during my visit, so I had to wait to see them play until I was back in the states, on national league TV).

Like Puerto Viejo, I will return often to my newest love, Whitby. I will stay in touch with my new friends there, and I will fantasize about uprooting my US-based life and re-planting myself in the soil of this magical, friendly place. Mind you, I totally don't wanna be there in the high season, but perhaps my future self will be able to live between Whitby, Puerto Viejo, and New Orleans.

Hope this answers the question.