Solo travel
The solo traveller who has seen more than you
My friends keep asking how I end up in places they have never heard of. So here are four trips that took much longer to organise than they did to explain afterwards.
Whenever I come back, someone looks through my photos and asks, ‘Why did you go all that way?’ That is the right question. I do not travel somewhere just because it is remote. I go when there is something at the end of the journey that I cannot experience anywhere else: an island community below a volcano, whales around a subtropical Japanese island, the world's largest fjord system or a beach shared with thousands of king penguins.
Tristan da Cunha: no airport and no guaranteed landing
Tristan da Cunha, South Atlantic Ocean — reached from Cape Town, South Africa
Tristan was worth the journey because it did not feel like a smaller version of somewhere else. Edinburgh of the Seven Seas sits between the Atlantic and a volcano, with green slopes rising directly behind the houses. Fewer than 300 people live on the island, and visitors experience the place with local guides rather than moving through a normal tourism industry.
I spent my time walking above the settlement, looking across the ocean and learning how daily life works in a community this isolated. Longer excursions can lead towards Queen Mary's Peak, the Base and the wilder parts of the island. Trips within the archipelago add rockhopper penguins, yellow-nosed albatrosses, fur seals and huge seabird colonies.
The best part was how quickly the island stopped feeling like a dot on a map. It became people, houses, a café, a local guide pointing out the path and an Atlantic view with no other land in sight.
Getting there is the short explanation, not the reason to go: Tristan has no airport, so I travelled by ship from Cape Town and arranged permission before the visit.
What the journey involves
No airport. Access is by ship from Cape Town, with limited berths and advance permission to land.
Ogasawara: 24 hours by ferry from Tokyo
Chichijima, Ogasawara Islands — approximately 1,000 km south of central Tokyo, Japan
I went to Ogasawara for the water and wildlife. The islands are a UNESCO Natural World Heritage site, with coral reefs, green sea turtles, dolphins and tropical fish around Chichijima. Humpback whales are seen in season from February to March, while sperm-whale watching runs from May to November.
A normal day there could begin in the forest, continue in the sea and finish with the sunset in this photo. Most of the archipelago is uninhabited, so even Chichijima feels far quieter than its Tokyo address suggests.
What stayed with me was the contrast. I had left one of the busiest cities in the world and arrived somewhere where the main decision was whether to spend the afternoon in the water or on a trail above it.
The access is simple but slow: there are no flights, so I took the Ogasawara-maru from Tokyo and reached Chichijima 24 hours later.
What the journey involves
The direct Ogasawara-maru crossing from Tokyo to Chichijima takes about 24 hours each way.
Ittoqqortoormiit: reaching Greenland through Iceland
Ittoqqortoormiit, East Greenland — beside the Scoresby Sound fjord system
Ittoqqortoormiit sits beside Scoresby Sound, the world's largest fjord system. That was the reason I wanted to see it. The view opens into huge water channels, basalt mountains and icebergs, with almost no sign of another settlement.
Summer means hiking, kayaking and fishing around the fjords. In winter, dog sleds become part of everyday transport and the landscape changes completely. The town is also a starting point for experiencing the much larger wilderness of northeast Greenland.
Around 363 people live here, roughly 500 kilometres north of the Arctic Circle. I could walk between the colourful houses, reach the edge of town within minutes and look straight into a landscape that continued far beyond anything visible on the map in my phone.
The final connection explains why the town remains so rarely visited: I travelled through Iceland to Nerlerit Inaat, then continued to Ittoqqortoormiit without a road between the airport and the settlement.
What the journey involves
Access usually runs from Iceland to Nerlerit Inaat, followed by a helicopter, boat or snowmobile transfer.
South Georgia: arrival by expedition ship
Gold Harbour, South Georgia — a remote British Overseas Territory in the South Atlantic
South Georgia was the easiest choice: I wanted to stand in front of a king-penguin colony and understand what those huge wildlife photographs actually feel like. Gold Harbour has around 25,000 breeding pairs, together with elephant seals, fur seals and several seabird species.
The animals are not arranged around a viewing platform. Penguins move between the colony and the water, seals rest along the beach and the Bertrab Glacier sits behind the entire scene. People stay at the edge and give everything else the right of way.
The sound and movement were what the photographs had never shown me. Every part of the beach was active, and the mountains made the colony look even larger.
Reaching South Georgia still requires an expedition ship and permission to enter, but that is only the transport. The reason to cross the South Atlantic is the moment Gold Harbour comes into view.
What the journey involves
There is no airport. Visitors arrive by sea and require permission to enter and land on South Georgia.
Why I still choose places like this
I remember Tristan for the community below the volcano, Ogasawara for the sea, Ittoqqortoormiit for the scale of Scoresby Sound and South Georgia for a beach that belonged to thousands of penguins.
The transport matters because it keeps these places rare, but it is never the main story. If the only interesting thing about a destination is how hard it is to reach, I choose somewhere else.
For me, a long journey makes sense only when the experience at the end is impossible to replace with an easier version somewhere closer.