Day 189 - Vanuatu 🇻🇺

August 18, 2021

Today we head to the final Pacific island nation of our journey, and it’s an absolute gem of a country to write about. Vanuatu is a chain of 83 volcanic islands in the South Pacific between Fiji and New Caledonia.

Similarly, to neighbouring Fiji, Vanuatu has a history of practicing cannibalism, although in Vanuatu it was reportedly practiced as recently as 1969. At this point, Vanuatu was known as the New Hebrides and in a very unusual turn of events jointly administered by both France and Britain before finally gaining independence in 1980.

Vanuatu was recently recognised as the most dangerous country in the world in terms of risk of natural disaster. Vanuatu is subjected to frequent earthquakes, cyclones and volcanic eruptions. Not to mention being home to 3 or possibly 4 saltwater crocodiles. The crocodiles that live in Vanuatu’s mangroves most likely arrived on the islands from New Guinea after cyclones. They are exceptionally well-travelled crocs as New Guinea is around 3000km away.

Other things lurking in Vanuatu’s waters include the luxury liner SS President Coolidge. The SS President Coolidge sunk during World War II after being hit by a mine and now provides for impressive wreck diving. You also may also be lucky enough to see a Dugong or sea cow when you’re driving.

Now for Vanuatu’s contributions to world culture - Vanuatu has produced more than a hundred indigenous languages - all in a country a similar size to Montenegro. This must be some kind of record.

Vanuatu’s other claim to fame is that it invented bungee jumping, or “land diving” apparently to begin with without even using a bungee rope. This is definitely one of those hobbies where it’s best to be a late-adopter.

I'm writing about every country in the world. One a day for 195 days. Learn more

Day 181 - Tuvalu 🇹🇻

August 2, 2021

Tuvalu is a cluster of nine coral islands and atolls in the South Pacific.

Tuvalu is the fourth smallest country in the world and is tiny, but it is at least marginally larger than sort of neighbouring Nauru. For reference Nauru is almost 1400 km from Tuvalu.

Tuvalu is from what I can tell the second lowest country on the planet. The highest point on Tuvalu is 4.6 meters above sea level meaning that Tuvalu is critically endangered by rising sea levels and cyclones.

Tuvalu’s economy is unsurprisingly small, given the country’s remoteness and small population. It does benefit though from fishing rights, and coconut farming. One unexpected are of revenue is from selling rights to its internet domain, “.tv”. One area Tuvalu doesn’t rake in the cash is tourism. Apparently the country receives hardly any tourism, although this has been gradually changing with a record 2,700 visitors in 2018.

I'm writing about every country in the world. One a day for 195 days. Learn more

Day 176 - Tonga 🇹🇴

July 28, 2021

Today we are actually travelling to the South Pacific, to Tonga. Tonga is a small island nation comprising of around 170 islands and is roughly similar in size to Singapore.

Like Australia, Tonga was re-discovered, or introduced to the western world by Captain Cook.

Tonga is known for its blowholes and whale watching opportunities where apparently you can even swim with humpback whales. The Mapu'a 'a Vaea Blowholes stretch along the coastline of the island Tongatapu and can blast up to 30 metres high. It’s also possible to see newly formed islands in Tonga - this means Tonga may eventually work its way further up the country-size league table.

When it comes to cultural activities, Tonga is known for its Rugby and feasts.

One thing Tonga is less known for is staging real-life Lord of the Flies episode in the 1960s. Six boys were shipwrecked on a Tongan island for 15 months. Unlike in the William Golding novel, they all survived, and in fact thrived. Having said that when they were eventually rescued and returned home, they were promptly arrested for stealing a boat.

I'm writing about every country in the world. One a day for 195 days. Learn more

Teenagers posing, Honiara, Solomon Islands

Day 161 - Solomon Islands 🇸🇧

July 13, 2021

Today we head to the Solomon Islands, a small nation of over 900 islands East of Papua New Guinea and northwest of Vanuatu.

The Solomon Islands are surprisingly much larger than I imagined. I imagined the Solomon Islands to be tiny, but it’s actually larger than Albania. Yes, I know Albania isn’t known for its great size, but this is still kind of surprising to me.

Apparently, The Solomon Islands receive almost no tourists despite looking completely idyllic. This may be partly due to the fact that in the early 2000s the Solomon Islands were plagued by economic crisis, political unrest and conflict. Australia deployed over 2000 peacekeeping troops. The situation is now more stable, but there are apparently lingering ethnic tensions.

Talking of tensions, the Solomon Islands are known for their skull caves. Essentially these are displays of human skulls collected by people who had killed and then decapitated their enemies. Now I really understand why tourism hasn’t taken off in the Solomon Islands!

I’ll round off today’s post with the fact that US President John F Kennedy was once marooned in The Solomon Islands in 1943 after his boat sank during World War II.

I'm writing about every country in the world. One a day for 195 days. Learn more

Day 150 - Samoa 🇼🇸

June 21, 2021

Today’s destination is another tiny island nation, this time in the Pacific. To me at least, Samoa is bigger than I expected as it is larger than Hong Kong.

Despite the fact that Samoa is only 125 km from its nearest neighbour, American Samoa, it is 24 hours ahead. It’s only been this way since 2011 when Samoa moved west. Samoa is now the first country to start the New Year as a whole.

Samoa has recently been ravaged with an epidemic of obesity as diets have changed. More and more imported, processed foods have resulted in rising levels of obesity and one in three residents suffering from Type 2 diabetes.

One more positive thing about Samoa is that it has for a long time recognised a third gender, or “faʻafafine”, people who recognise themselves as having a non-binary gender role. Now that’s something I can drink to. If only I could get hold of a Vailima in Copenhagen…

I'm writing about every country in the world. One a day for 195 days. Learn more

Day 137 - Papua New Guinea 🇵🇬

June 8, 2021

Today, our second stop is Papua New Guinea, the third-largest island country in the world. It’s even bigger than Sweden.

Papua New Guinea neighbours Indonesia on the island of New Guinea and Queen Elizabeth II the Head of State. You can probably guess which country colonised Papua New Guinea in the past.

Papua New Guinea’s territory even includes a “New Britain” island, and the capital city is called Port Moresby named after a British Admiral of the Fleet, Sir Fairfax Moresby.

Papua New Guinea is known for its penis-gourds and vibrant sing-sing festivals. One thing you absolutely wouldn’t expect about Papua New Guinea though is that its pigs sometimes have an extremely close relationship to humans. In fact, this relationship is so close that in certain tribes, women sometimes breastfeed suckling pigs. I’m not making this up. Having said that, is a pig drinking human milk really any weirder than a human drinking goat’s milk?

Right, after that bizarre turn of events and writing two posts this evening, I think I’ve earned myself a cold, refreshing, lactose-free SP Lager.

I'm writing about every country in the world. One a day for 195 days. Learn more

Day 134 - Palau 🇵🇼

June 5, 2021

Today we return to Micronesia, to the small island nation of Palau. Palau is comprised of more than 500 islands

Palau is in a “free association” with the United States. This essentially means that the US provides defence and certain economic benefits in exchange for Palau being within the US’s sphere of influence and allowing the US to build military bases on its territory.

Palau looks to have an almost perfect climate with temperatures around the mid-twenties every day of the year.

Palau is home to saltwater crocodiles and over 130 species of shark. Great for worry-free swimming.

Palau’s most famous dish is fruit bat soup. Yep, that’s right, soup made with bats. It’s kind of staggering then that Palau only recorded its first case of covid-19 last week!

I'm writing about every country in the world. One a day for 195 days. Learn more

Day 126 - New Zealand 🇳🇿

May 28, 2021

Today we’re headed to New Zealand. Today’s post is going to be me mostly just reminiscing about how wonderful New Zealand is.

We visited New Zealand for a few weeks around New Year 2015. Upon arriving in New Zealand the first thing we did was eat local, fresh New Zealand oysters. This set a good trajectory for the trip.

We then saw in New Year’s Eve in Aukland, followed a long week driving around the South Island in a camper van.

New Zealand is the most beautiful country I have ever visited. It’s also a country where it is completely impossible to find bad coffee (or wine). I honestly cannot wait to return one day.

One of my all-time favourite and serendipitous travel moments occurred when we were driving up the coast road North of Greymouth. We pulled over to admire a beautiful beach in the late afternoon sun. We ended up talking to a Kiwi couple in their early 60s who were catching mussels and cooking them on an open flame on the beach. We traded iPad technical support in exchange for the absolute tastiest mussels I’ve ever eaten.

I am not a talented enough writer to do justice to how wonderful New Zealand is, so instead, I’m going to take the easy route and simply share a few holiday photos. Enjoy. Oh, and apologies for my burnt nose.

I'm writing about every country in the world. One a day for 195 days. Learn more

Day 123 - Nauru 🇳🇷

May 25, 2021

Today we head to the tiny Pacific island nation of Nauru. I wasn’t expecting this, but Nauru is one of the most bizarre destinations we’ve visited so far on this journey.

Nauru is the third smallest country in the world behind Vatican City and Monaco and is the second least populous country with only around 10,000 people living there. This may be a useful piece of trivia, but it’s not the reason Nauru stands out. For that, we’ll have to start by covering a little of Nauru’s history.

Nauru was first settled by Micronesian people around 3000 years ago and then became a German colony during the 19th century, and as with yesterday’s destination, Namibia was administered by the League of Nations after World War One. In this case, it meant that Nauru was jointly administered by Britain, Australia and New Zealand.

Never missing a good business opportunity, these three nations noticed that Nauru is a phosphate-rock island. For any non-geologists, this means the entire island was once covered in bird poo, or “guano”. This humungous deposit of guano made Nauru the ideal place to mine phosphates for fertiliser or explosives. Mining started around the turn of the 20th century but exploded under Britain, Australia and New Zealand’s tenure.

By the time Nauru became a fully independent country in the 1960s mining had been so successful, Nauru had the second-highest GDP per capita of any country in the world. Sadly for Nauru, this was also a turning point. In 1964 it was estimated that the country would become uninhabitable by the 1990s. In response to this, Australia’s Prime Minister proposed relocating Nauru’s entire population to an island off the coast of Queensland.

However, the Nauruan’s refused, preferring to stick it out in a country that was rapidly becoming a desolate wasteland of stark-white limestone pinnacles.

While Nauruan’s kept their rightful homeland, there has been a stark consequence of this decision. The majority of Nauru is now covered with mine ruins meaning it’s almost impossible to grow crops. As a result the Nauruan diet largely consists of heavily processed, imported food. Today Nauru is the most obese nation in the World. The WHO estimates that 95% of Nauruan’s are overweight or obese.

After half a century of prosperity due to mining, Nauru is once again a poor country and is reliant on Australia for financial support. This brings us full circle to the other reason you may have heard of Nauru- it’s the emote Pacific island where Australia offloads asylum seekers.

Nauru really is the perfect cautionary tale of resource exploitation.

I'm writing about every country in the world. One a day for 195 days. Learn more

Moen, Chuuk, Federated States of Micronesia

Day 114 - Federated States of Micronesia 🇫🇲

May 16, 2021

Today we head to another tiny island nation, the Federated States of Micronesia (or simply Micronesia as I’ll refer to it in this post). Micronesia consists of 607 islands yet has a land area smaller than Singapore.

Despite having such a small landmass, Micronesia has 2,600,000 km of territorial waters in the Pacific Ocean giving it the 14th-largest exclusive economic zone of any country.

Micronesia has a small population of only 104k, and is also one of the world’s least-visited countries, only receiving approximately 30,000 visitors a year. I can understand why. I just looked at flights to Chuuk and we’re looking at 40+ hours and €4,000 in financial damage. In economy.

Micronesia was colonised by Spain in 1886 who shortly after sold the islands to Germany in 1899. During World War One, Japan then invaded and occupied the islands from 1914 until 1944 at which point they were administered by the United States. Micronesia was a colony of the US until 1986.

There are still quite a few signs of Micronesia’s 20th-century turmoil underwater. Truk Lagoon is home to over 60 sunken Japanese warships destroyed by American forces in 1944. It’s a diving spot like no other, provided you’re okay with a 40-hour flight.