Imagine a place with turquoise blue waters, tropical fish, lush green forests, friendly locals, and, best of all, no* connection to the outside world. The place you are imagining is Lord Howe Island, Australia.
Of course, it’s a whopping $1000 roundtrip from the mainland of Australia (Just a few Qantas flights daily from Sydney or Brisbane). Oh, and sometimes the weather picks up and you can’t get off the island. Supply ships can also take a hot minute to arrive, so food supplies can become quite paltry between ships.
However, I would take all that and more to visit this secluded paradise over and over again.
My most recent trip to LHI was my second (lucky me!). My partner won the genetic lottery by being the descendant of one of the original settlers of this temperate caldera. His family maintains Thornleigh after all these years, and recently, they’ve began conservation efforts to revitalize the lovely old house and farm. Just this year we enjoyed a wonderful spread of vegetables from the fields just behind the house. But this is only the beginning for this healthy plot of land in the South Tasman sea. I’ll update more here with progress from this outsider’s point of view!
Where were we?
Originally, LHI was a provisioning port for whalers, but with time, settlers discovered various crops that could be exported to the mainland. Years of trading, expansion, and settlement took its toll on the island, with several species becoming extremely endangered or even extinct. Today, Lord Howe is protected as a World Heritage site as attempts to return the island to it’s pre-inhabitance glory are made.
If you’re interested in reading more, feel free to get lost in this Wiki article.
The Lord Howe Island of my recent memory is potentially one of the most wonderful places I have visited in my short 26 years on this life. It’s not perfect, but it’s perfectly imperfect.
I could spend hours upon hours exploring the Herring pools, hiking the rolling hills, gazing out from Goat House on Mt. Lidgeberg, searching for turtles at Old Settlement, enjoying a coffee at a local shop, watching the terns hovering at Blinky Beach… And those are just the things I did last visit.
You’re going to want to add Lord Howe Island to your Bucket List.
*Alright alright, there are places to find internet around… But no cell service. You have to talk with people who are physically present!
The Girl In Translation 
Wow! I’m going to the Galapagos in February. But Lord Howe Island looks beautiful! Certainly fewer tourists.
On my bucket list now!