Tikopia

Tikopia is a small volcanic island in the far east of the Solomons with a crater lake taking up much of it and around a thousand Polynesian people living on the rest. It became widely known through Raymond Firth's fieldwork and later through accounts of how the island regulated its own population and food supply within very hard limits. It is among the most isolated inhabited places in the Pacific.

What you actually see

• The crater lake - the brackish water filling much of the island.
• The Polynesian community - around a thousand people on a very small island.
• The garden system - the intensive cultivation the island lives on.
• The isolation - days of open ocean from anywhere with an airstrip.

When to go

May to October is the drier season. Ships run irregularly, sometimes months apart. Cyclones affect the island from November.

Honest expectations

There is no airstrip and the only access is an irregular ship; visits mean weeks or months, not days. Chiefly permission is required to land and stay. There are no facilities of any kind.

Nearby

Anuta is northeast, and Lata is far northwest.