The idea of running off to a remote island is really appealing right now

The appeal of the remote is strong. Any time an island, or place lost in the middle of nowhere, seeks new caretakers, there is a story. The most recent is Great Blasket, an island round the bend from Dingle, a part of Kerry, floating free, resting in the North Atlantic. It’s uninhabited, has been since 1953, aside from a lot of seals and puffins.

But, from April to October, there are tourists, loads of them. They come to see the wildlife, on the land and in the sea. There are five holiday cottages and a coffee hatch, dispensing to those who make it to the island. This year, the coffee and the rest will be taken care of by Camille Rosenfeld and James Hayes, a newly married young couple. They’ll be living in that remote place, with no electricity, save for energy from batteries, water drawn from a spring, and nothing but wide-open sea between them and Newfoundland. 

“We are just really comfortable being uncomfortable,” said Camille. Good job.

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It’s appealing, though, isn’t it. That idea of turning the tap off from all the pressures that pile on and being free for a few months. And there is always SOMEWHERE with these caretaking needs. Toastie (the best dog in the world) would be right up for this, I thought. So, I had a look. 

I looked first to St Helena – always fancied tramping Napoleon’s final fields. It meets the remote brief. It’s comfortably down in the South Atlantic 1,200 miles from Africa, 1,800 miles from South America. Even its neighbour, Ascension, is over 800 miles north. That’s quite a paddle.

St Helena has an immigration office. Part of its role is to bring St Helenian’s back to live and work. And also “protecting borders to ensure that the island is safe and secure”. I don’t know if there is a small boats issue hitting St Helena’s shores, but they’re ready, it seems. I couldn’t see a demand for anything I could do there, though. Besides, there’s a population of more than 4,000, so tramping barren, unpopulated bleak hillsides would be tricky. 

I also had a look at Ascension. Nice climate, though it seems Charles Darwin wasn’t a massive fan when he landed, there are a few jobs to be filled, population isn’t too big (around 800) but I’m not drawn. 

So, I darted over to Pitcairn, nestling down in the South Pacific. It really is remote. There is only one provision ship that lands every three months. There is no runway or water source beyond springs. It has the smallest population of any global democracy – around 37 people live there now.

Though it has an interesting history – its population largely descends from the mutineers of The Bounty – its recent past is darkened by terrible sexual abuse. It is a place that feels, in many ways, lost.

Pitcairn has internet access. This access is provided by Starlink. Starlink has nearly 7,000 small satellites in low orbit, and may try to grow this to over 34,000. That is a lot of control over communication systems on Earth. We’ve all witnessed the potency of Starlink during the Ukraine war, the benefit the system brought Ukraine.

But also the influence that brings, how the threat to turn it off can shadow. Starlink is owned by Elon Musk. His manic interventions in US domestic policy are one thing; the fact that he controls so much of how the world communicates is much more impactful. 

And it will only grow. There is no remote, barely inhabited rock on Earth that he can’t touch and change. 

This is not a positive, but it is a reality. Just how many can that springtime ferry to Great Blasket hold…?

Paul McNamee is editor of the Big Issue.Read more of his columns here. Follow him on X.

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