Eight surnames, one road, and seven days of travel—Tristan da Cunha, the most remote island in the world, where silence is a luxury, but not a choice.
Have you heard of Tristan da Cunha? If the answer is no, don't worry–you're not alone. The island is so remote that even Google Maps has to take a deep breath before locating it. Located in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, halfway between South Africa and South America, Tristan da Cunha is the most isolated inhabited community on the planet. A paradise, or a prison sentence? It depends on how you see life.
Visiting Tristan is not something weekend travelers should aim for. There's no such thing as a direct flight, of course. You start from the nearest mainland, Cape Town (2810 kilometers away), and embark on a merchant ship: seven days of open sea. The landing is an event in itself because the ocean often decides you are unwelcome and pushes back anyone who dares to approach. In short, simply getting there feels like a survival-style vacation.
Tristan has around 250 inhabitants—practically all related to one another—and only one village: Edinburgh of the Seven Seas. The name is a bit excessive, considering that the center of social life is a bar, a shop, and a post office. The island has only one road. It is simply called "The Road". Creativity is for mainlanders.
For those who love crowds, it's definitely the wrong place. Here, time stands still, and the main activities are fishing for lobsters, gazing at the endless sea, and flipping through a three-page tourist guide. You can't even walk your dog, because they are banned here to protect the local wildlife, although cows and sheep enjoy freedom of movement without the need for a passport.
The inhabitants share only eight surnames: Glass, Swain, Green, Rogers, Hagan, Patterson, Lavarello and Repetto. The first six originate from British and American ancestors, while the last two are of Genoese origin, brought by shipwrecked sailors from Camogli who landed on the island in 1892.
Why travel there at all? To tell the tale. How many people can say they have visited the most fascinating cosmic nothingness in the world? Tristan da Cunha is a dream for those seeking radical isolation and for anyone who occasionally gets tired of hearing about "life/work balance" in the office. Here, the pace of life is punctuated by the ocean, the seasons, and the ship's latest arrival. In the age of instant gratification, it offers the most exclusive experience there is: silence. No tourists, no networks, no distractions. Just you, the ocean, and a community that feels like it belongs to a different era. Who knows, maybe seven days at sea will make you realize that, in the end, being far away from everything brings you closer to yourself.