Tuvalu
“Where is that?” was the most common reaction when we said we were travelling to Tuvalu. Visiting the second least visited country in the world already felt unusual. Arriving there for part of our honeymoon felt even more unexpected.
Funafuti is small enough to understand quickly. You can walk across the island in minutes and from one end to the other in about 13 km. Nearly a third of its width is taken up by the runway, which serves only a few flights each week. Most evenings it becomes the main gathering place for locals. Children play there, families walk, and people simply sit and talk while waiting for sunset over the lagoon.
Life moves slowly here. There is no rush anywhere. Motorbikes replace walking, and daily routines follow a rhythm shaped more by community than by schedules. Sundays are taken especially seriously. Shops close and activity stops. Even finding someone to take us by boat to nearby atolls required effort. The result was worth it. We had empty beaches, clear water and long quiet horizons almost entirely to ourselves.
One evening we nearly received a warning from the police for walking along the road during evening devotion time between 18:45 and 19:00. For a few minutes the island pauses and everyone stops what they are doing. It felt less strict than symbolic and somehow fitting for a place like Tuvalu.
Remote, calm and easy to miss on the map, but memorable in a way that larger destinations rarely are.
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