Uoleva

Wow. I didn't think places like Uoleva Island still existed. Luckily I was wrong. And all you have to do (ha, ha) is get yourself to Fiji or New Zealand or Australia, and then take another flight to Tonga, and then take a domestic flight to the Ha'apai island group...

...(and if you're really lucky, Real Tonga Airlines will cancel your direct flight to Ha'apai, "forcing" you to take a detour to the Vava'u  islands en route to Ha'apai, which essentially amounts to a free flight-seeing tour and taking away the last of your regret that you did not plan time for Vava'u into your trip)...

...and then wade thigh-deep into the Pacific to board a boat that does not exactly look sea-worthy (yes, that one, there)...

...and then once you disembark after the 30-45 minute boat trip to Uoleva, prepare to be just wandering around slack-jawed in amazement and gratitude for the duration of your stay there.

There is no village here, just five or six “resorts” (in quotes because that term is used incredibly loosely). But I had all I needed: a bamboo hut (fale) with a hammock hanging outside (though you can't see that in this picture):

A mattress with mosquito net for ridiculously luxuriously long nights' sleep (and yes, that's a Sleeping Beauty blanket; you can't have it; it's mine):

Bathroom:

Amazing food prepared for me morning and night by the camp owners, who would tell their 10-year-old nephew to go get a fish and he'd run out into the water with a spear and come back less than fifteen minutes later with one big enough to feed everyone within hollering distance:

Lots of non-human company in the form of sand crabs...and I believe this to be a busy sand crab traffic intersection?:

And more beach than I could possibly use, all to myself. 

And I’m serious about that. In four days on Uoleva, I never saw another foreigner, except for on the last afternoon when I walked a half-hour down the beach to snorkel in front of another establishment and stumbled upon a English woman who was clearly shocked to see me; in fact, she interrupted the question I was asking her to say, “I’m sorry, but where did you COME from?” She walked away mumbling about how she's been there for days and had the whole place to herself, and seemed a bit put-out not to be the only foreigner on the island. But I could hardly take offense, as I was starting to think of it as my own private Tongan island, too. Otherwise, it was only a handful of locals attached to the “resort” (sorry; I can’t not put that in quotes!) who were around off and on. The whole time I was there, I did not put on a pair of shoes other than snorkeling fins or wear anything other than my swim suit and a wrap against the sun. I slept long, I snorkeled everyday around AMAZING coral reef right at my doorstep, walked on the beach, spent a truly gluttonous amount of time reading in the hammock, wrote, sat staring off over the ocean doing nothing at all…it was so exactly what I had been hoping for that I can hardly believe it was real.

Off in the distance in this shot, you can see a marine volcano that is apparently predictable enough that they have resorts ("resorts"?) out there, too. Next time!

I mean, seriously: 

When can I go back?