Tuvalu: the honeymoon almost nobody takes

Tuvalu: one of the least-visited countries on earth

Tuvalu is one of the least-visited countries on earth, a thread of low coral atolls in the central Pacific so remote that the nearest country is three days away by boat and the only way in is a handful of flights a week. We came on our honeymoon, the only honeymooners on the island, and the best day of the whole trip was the one we very nearly did not manage at all.

We wanted to reach the uninhabited islets scattered across the lagoon, and on the Sunday we tried, nothing was moving: the whole island had stopped for church. We eventually found someone willing to take us, and were put, soaking, on two plastic chairs in the middle of an open boat for the half-hour crossing. It was worth every wave.

What waited on the far side was the kind of place you half stop believing exists. A string of tiny islands, white sand, leaning palms, water so clear it barely registered as water, and not another soul on any of them. We hopped from one to the next, our two boatmen wading in to hold the boat against the wind like living anchors, while we wandered around with the only footprints our own. One islet was all jagged coral, too sharp to cross barefoot; the next was pure soft sand; the farthest ones sat close enough that at low tide you could almost wade between them.

Tuvalu is remote, plain, and easy to miss on a map. But for one afternoon it handed us a string of perfect, empty islands entirely to ourselves, and that is not something many places can still do.

Few places left can give you a perfect, empty island for an afternoon. This is one of them.