A car park, coastal trail and interpretive panels serve visitors.

The area is popular with climbers because of Yesnaby Castle, a two-legged sea stack just south of the Brough of Bigging.

The coastal cliffs are formed from the Lower Devonian sandstones ascribed to the Yesnaby Sandstone Group - a set of geological formations restricted to the Yesnaby area, and to the overlying beds of the Lower Stromness Flagstones.

[citation needed] Orkney folklore has it that a woman known as the "Yesnaby Healer" had the ability to stop bleeding in any person, even over a distance.

The Archaeology Institute of the University of the Highlands and Islands initiated the Yesnaby Art & Archaeology Research Project[3] During the Second World War an anti-aircraft battery was built on the cliff top at Yesnaby as part of the defences of the Royal Navy base at Scapa Flow.