The Strangest Islands on Earth
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Forbidden & Off-Limits
North Sentinel Island
Home of the Sentinelese, one of the last uncontacted peoples on Earth. Landing is illegal and India enforces a strict keep away exclusion zone around the island, so this one stays on the map only. #forbidden
Snake Island (Ilha da Queimada Grande)
Hosts one of the densest venomous snake populations on the planet, the critically endangered golden lancehead viper lives only here. The Brazilian navy bans public landings, only authorized researchers may set foot on it. #forbidden #animals
Gruinard Island (Anthrax Island)
Used for British anthrax weapon tests in 1942 and quarantined for almost 50 years. It was decontaminated and declared safe in 1990, though it remains uninhabited and only reachable by private boat from the Scottish coast. #forbidden #abandoned
Surtsey
Born from an undersea eruption in 1963, one of the newest islands on Earth and a pristine natural laboratory for how life colonizes bare rock. Only approved scientists may land, everyone else admires it from boats or flights around the Westman Islands. #forbidden #volcanic
Farallon Islands
A jagged wildlife refuge just 43 km from San Francisco, packed with hundreds of thousands of seabirds and circled by great white sharks. Landing is off limits to the public, but whale watching cruises from the city sail around them. #forbidden #animals
Niihau (The Forbidden Island)
Privately owned since 1864 and closed to outsiders to protect its small Native Hawaiian community, where Hawaiian remains the daily language. Access is limited to a few expensive helicopter or hunting tours from Kauai. #forbidden
Animal Islands
Okunoshima (Rabbit Island)
A former secret poison gas factory island now overrun by hundreds of friendly wild rabbits. An easy day trip, a short ferry from Tadanoumi near Hiroshima, with a small hotel and the sobering Poison Gas Museum. #animals #visitable
Aoshima (Cat Island, Ehime)
A tiny fishing village where cats came to outnumber the handful of human residents many times over. Reached by a small ferry from Nagahama, bring your own food and water as there are no shops. #animals #visitable
Tashirojima (Cat Island, Miyagi)
Cats have been revered here as protectors since the silk farming era, and today they rule the island complete with their own cat shrine. Ferries run from Ishinomaki several times a day. #animals #visitable
Sable Island
A thin crescent of sand alone in the Atlantic where around 500 wild horses roam among huge grey seal colonies. It is a national park reserve, visits need Parks Canada approval and arrive by small charter plane. #animals #remote
Ramree Island
Infamous for the 1945 battle where retreating soldiers entered mangrove swamps full of saltwater crocodiles, often cited as the worst crocodile disaster in history. The crocodiles are still there, and Myanmar's situation makes visiting unrealistic for now. #animals
Assateague Island
A barrier island where bands of wild ponies wander the beaches and salt marshes, made famous by the Chincoteague pony swim. Easy to visit by car through the Maryland or Virginia entrances, you can even camp among the ponies. #animals #visitable
Christmas Island
Every year tens of millions of red crabs march from the forest to the sea, closing roads under a moving red carpet. Fly in from Perth, the migration usually peaks around November or December. #animals #visitable
Pig Beach (Big Major Cay)
An uninhabited Bahamian cay whose beach belongs to a colony of swimming pigs that paddle out to greet arriving boats. Reached by boat tours from Staniel Cay or day trips from Nassau. #animals #visitable
Seal Island (False Bay)
A bare granite rock packed with tens of thousands of Cape fur seals, famous for great white sharks breaching clean out of the water. No landing allowed, boat trips from Simon's Town circle the island. #animals
Abandoned & Haunting
Hashima (Gunkanjima)
Once the most densely populated place on Earth, this battleship shaped coal mining island was abandoned almost overnight in 1974. Guided boat tours from Nagasaki land on a small permitted walkway when the sea allows. #abandoned #visitable
Ross Island (Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose Dweep)
The former British administrative capital of the Andamans, its ballrooms, church and bakery now strangled by ficus roots. A short boat ride from Port Blair, with deer wandering the ruins. #abandoned #visitable
Spinalonga
A Venetian fortress island off Crete that became one of Europe's last leper colonies, only closing in 1957. Boats from Elounda and Plaka bring visitors to walk its abandoned streets. #abandoned #visitable
Suakin Island
A medieval Red Sea port built of coral blocks, once the Ottoman gateway for pilgrims sailing to Mecca, now a ghost town of crumbling coral houses. Reachable from Port Sudan only when the security situation allows. #abandoned
Holland Island
A once thriving Chesapeake Bay community that erosion slowly swallowed, its famous last house collapsed into the water in 2010. The island is now mostly gone, visible only from a boat. #abandoned
Remote Extremes
Tristan da Cunha
The most remote inhabited island on Earth, around 240 people live 2400 km from the nearest continent. There is no airport, the only way in is a week long boat trip from Cape Town booked months ahead. #remote
Pitcairn Island
Settled by the Bounty mutineers in 1790, fewer than 50 of their descendants still live in Adamstown. Getting there means flying to Mangareva in French Polynesia and then a 32 hour sail on the supply ship. #remote
Bouvet Island
The most remote island on the planet, a glacier covered volcano roughly 1700 km from Antarctica and claimed by Norway. There is no harbor and nobody home, only rare research expeditions land by helicopter. #remote #volcanic
Palmyra Atoll
A lush, eerily beautiful US atoll with a dark reputation built on wartime legends and a notorious 1974 double murder. Now a national wildlife refuge, only researchers and conservation staff may stay. #remote #forbidden
Kerguelen Islands (Port-aux-Francais)
The French Desolation Islands, home only to rotating scientists living among king penguins and elephant seals. There is no airstrip, access is the supply ship Marion Dufresne from Reunion a few times a year. #remote
Easter Island (Rapa Nui)
Nearly 900 moai statues stand on one of the most isolated inhabited islands anywhere, 3500 km from mainland Chile. Regular flights from Santiago make it the easiest extremely remote place to actually visit. #remote #visitable
Saint Helena (Jamestown)
Napoleon's final prison, a volcanic speck in the South Atlantic that only got an airport in 2017 after centuries of ship only access. Weekly flights from Johannesburg now land on one of the world's trickiest runways. #remote #visitable
Border & Sovereignty Oddities
Märket
A 3 hectare rock split between Finland and Sweden, its zigzag border was redrawn because the Finnish lighthouse was accidentally built on the Swedish half. Volunteer lighthouse keepers and occasional summer boat trips from Aland land here when the swell allows. #border #tiny
Pheasant Island
The world's oldest condominium, this river islet switches between Spanish and French sovereignty every six months under a treaty signed in 1659. Landing is forbidden, view it from the banks of the Bidasoa between Irun and Hendaye. #border #forbidden
Little Diomede Island
An Alaskan village staring across 3.8 km of water at Russia and at tomorrow, since the date line runs between the two Diomede islands. Access is by helicopter from Nome, or over the sea ice in winter. #border #remote
Big Diomede Island
Russia's Tomorrow Island, up to 21 hours ahead of its American neighbor sitting in plain sight across the strait. It is a closed military zone, completely off limits. #border #forbidden
Hans Island
Canada and Denmark waged the friendly Whisky War over this barren Arctic rock for decades, leaving flags and bottles for each other, until a land border was finally drawn across it in 2022. Only rare icebreaker expeditions ever pass. #border #remote
Passport Island (King Fahd Causeway)
An artificial island in the middle of the sea halfway along the King Fahd Causeway, built purely to host the border post where Saudi Arabia and Bahrain meet. You cross it every time you drive between the two countries. #border #visitable
Geologic Weirdness
Vulcan Point (Taal Volcano)
An island in a lake on a volcano island in a lake on an island, the world's favorite geographic nesting doll. The 2020 eruption reshaped the crater lake, so admire it from the Tagaytay ridge while access to the volcano island depends on alert levels. #volcanic #tiny
Ball's Pyramid
The world's tallest sea stack, a 562 m blade of rock where the Lord Howe Island stick insect, long thought extinct, was rediscovered on a single bush in 2001. Climbing is restricted, boat and dive trips run from Lord Howe Island. #volcanic #animals
Deception Island
An active Antarctic volcano whose flooded caldera lets ships sail straight into the crater through a gap called Neptune's Bellows. Cruises stop at the ruined whaling station and the geothermally warmed black sand beach. #volcanic #abandoned #visitable
Nishinoshima
A volcanic island 1000 km south of Tokyo that erupted in 2013, swallowed its older self and has grown more than tenfold since. Landing is prohibited while it keeps building itself, scientists watch from ships and planes. #volcanic #forbidden
Samosir Island (Lake Toba)
An island in a lake on an island, sitting inside Lake Toba, the caldera of a supervolcano whose eruption 74000 years ago may have nearly wiped out humanity. Ferries from Parapat serve the laid back Batak villages around Tuktuk. #volcanic #visitable
Just Room Enough Island
Often called the smallest inhabited island in the world, a single house covers the entire rock with barely room left for a tree. It is private, but Thousand Islands boat tours cruise right past. #tiny
Bishop Rock
Listed by Guinness as the smallest island in the world with a building on it, the whole island is one lighthouse in the open Atlantic. Boat trips from the Isles of Scilly pass this lonely sentinel. #tiny
Migingo Island
A half acre rock in Lake Victoria crammed with over a hundred fishermen's shacks, bars and even a pharmacy, often called the most densely packed island on Earth. Kenya and Uganda both claim it, adventurous visitors arrive by boat from the Kenyan shore. #tiny #border
Isola La Gaiola
A pretty two rock islet off Naples with a villa said to curse its owners, after a string of untimely deaths and bankruptcies. It sits in a protected marine park, swim or kayak out from Gaiola beach. #tiny #visitable
Fadiouth Shell Island
A Senegalese island built entirely of clam shells accumulated over centuries, with a shell cemetery where Muslims and Christians rest side by side. Cross the wooden footbridge from Joal, no cars allowed. #visitable
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