Lonely Planet™ · Thorn Tree Forum · 2020

Deserted Island Camping/Survival

Country forums / Pacific Islands & Papua New Guinea

Hi All,

I’ve done a fair amount of research and have yet to turn up any location which meets the criteria I’m looking for so I’m hoping a bit more local knowledge may yield a better result.

Essentially my best friend and I want to spend 10-14 days on a deserted island where:
- We can legally occupy the island without trespassing
- There is enough flora/fauna where we could subsist primarily off of hunting/gathering for the duration. (And where we can legally harvest fish and a pig or a goat).
- We can reasonably gather enough freshwater for basic needs (i.e. cooking/drinking) through either rainwater capture or on island sources.
- It doesn’t cost a small fortune to get to/from and occupy for that timeframe.
- We are likely or guaranteed to be the only occupants for the duration.
- We maintain some separation from civilization. (ie we don’t want to be in an island and then see a resort 100m away)
- We don’t want any preexisting structures/infrastructure. We are truly looking to rough it and create our own shelter/etc.

Some notes:
- Yes, I’ve seen docastaway.com and none of their offerings meet the above criteria
- My friend and I are experienced in wilderness survival, hunting, shelter building, fire making, wilderness first aid, etc and are going into this understanding that there can be significant or even extreme risks of injury or death in undertaking a venture like this.
- Ideally we are looking to do this between November and February.

Any information or suggestions anyone has would be greatly appreciated.

I very much doubt such an island exists because:

1) All land in the Pacific belongs to someone so you would be trespassing, even if in practice the owner may not care or may even give permission

2) Any island with a population of goats and pigs would be big enough to be either inhabited by people or at least visited by them to hunt

3) Any island with enough resources to live on yet not costing a fortune to reach would be at least sometimes visited by locals from nearby islands to harvest those resources, so would already have some basic structures and there would be no guarantee no one would visit while you are there.

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I very much doubt such an island exists because:

1) All land in the Pacific belongs to someone so you would be trespassing, even if in practice the owner may not care or may even give permission

You're making the assumption we're just trying to "show up", of course not. Totally willing to pay "rent" or "fee" or what-have-you within reason. We certainly don't want to trespass and are looking to do this legally and responsibly.

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