Islands

According to Alain de Botton (The Art of Travel, 2002: 9): 'If our lives are dominated by a search for happiness, then perhaps few activities reveal as much about the dynamics of this quest - in all its ardour and paradoxes - than our travels. They express, however inarticulately, an understanding of what life might be about, outside the constraints of work and of the struggle for survival.'

No travels are quite as exciting or romantic as those to faraway islands. This website focuses on islands. In his classic "Islands and their Mysteries", A. Hyatt Verrill asked 'What is an island?' and went on to examine the concept in this way:

'Our geographies tell us that "an island is a body of land surrounded by water," but they should add "and by romance and mystery," for what would an island be if it did not possess these? There is something about an island, be it large or small, which appeals to the imagination of everyone. Every schoolboy knows the fascination which the tiniest island in the mill-pond or the lake held for him, a fascination never shared by the mainland of the shores, even though this were far wilder and more densely wooded than the islet. What possibilities for adventure and exploration does such an island not present; what chances for discoveries and surprises! Once beyond its fringe of brushwood and, perhaps, blaeberry bushes, one seems in a strange, new land cut off from all the world, even though a scant half-mile of water separates it from a farmhouse or a village. One feels that within its thickets may lurk strange and savage beasts, that its copses may hide unknown secrets, that somewhere upon it may be a robbers' or a smugglers' cave, or even that upon some rock or tree may be a strange symbol which, read aright, will lead to buried treasure.

'And as boyhood gives way to manhood do we not still feel the same old thrill, the same appeal to our imagination when, on some tropic sea, we approach an unknown island with its snowy strands bare of human beings, its towering mountains covered with forests untouched by axe, its waving palms beckoning us to land? And as we step ashore do we not feel our pulses quicken, our nerves tingle and our common sense desert us as in our schoolboy days of old? It makes no difference if the island lies in the beaten track of great steamers or is in almost uncharted seas; it matters not if the seas about it are turquoise under tropic skies or green under northern skies of gray, for the lure is there, the mystery, the possibility for adventure and discovery - for is it not an island? and in this fact alone lie all the subtle charm and attraction.

'From the very beginning of time islands have had a strange fascination for mankind, and ever since men first began to tell stories, islands have held a prominent part in all their tales. Sinbad the Sailor had some marvellous adventures on an island; Gulliver's Travels were mainly on strange, unknown islands; the Greek heroes sought the Golden Fleece and performed many of their most memorable deeds on islands.

'Enchanted castles and fairies have been located on islands by all nations; Shakespeare knew the romance and the fascination of islands, and laid the scenes of his "Tempest" on one of them. Half the interest of Robinson Crusoe's story lies in the island on which he was shipwrecked; the Swiss Family Robinson were cast away upon a most remarkable island; Jules Verne was alive to the appeal which islands possess when he wrote "The Mysterious Island"; and Stevenson gave the world a treasure in his "Treasure Island." Did anyone ever hear of a real castaway story or a treasure-trove which was not upon an island? What would the swashbuckling, the blood-letting old pirates and buccaneers have done without islands on which to carouse and bury their loot? A pirate without an island! Why, he's totally lost, and might just as well retire and take to raising chickens.'

Robert Louis Stevenson spent the last eight years of his life in Samoa, now emerging as a new travel destination between Hawaii and New Zealand.

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