South Pacific

Oceania, or the constellation of Pacific islands, has occupied a special place in the European imagination ever since its discovery by early Spanish explorers and the voyages of Captain Cook. Subsequently the islands became an important laboratory for natural scientists, botanists and anthropologists, were exploited as sources of imperial wealth, even functioning as hellish prisons and theatres of war. This was long before the notion of the tropical island was transformed into the modern image of an ideal tourist paradise.

Paradoxically, despite comprising a third of the earth's surface, the Pacific is comparatively little written about by serious travel writers. The easy Western geographical construct of Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia conceals one of the most culturally diverse regions on earth. Tiny islands are difficult of access and expensive to travel to, which has largely preserved many of them from the corrosive Western influences that now reach overland even into 'remote' regions of Patagonia, Laos or the High Pamir.

History has provided me with many darkly humorous characters, the idyllic landscape and richly fascinating cultures with vivid descriptions in my pursuit of the hazardous romance of tropical islands. I hope you will enjoy travelling with me to some of the last places on earth to be explored by Europeans and learn how the old certainties of island life, myth and magic are slowly changing and being replaced by a new order.