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Falling in love with island life - Guest Post
Colourful sunsets, fresh breeze and soft sand under your feet.. This is the life any true nomad will fall for...
Falling In Love With Island Life
THIS GUEST POST is brought to you by Manu & Kasia, a Swiss-Polish couple wandering about in Europe and South-East Asia running a blog called The Clueless Abroad. They are into diving, slow & responsible travel and island life. So they are pretty cool :P
Here's a confession: we probably suck at travelling. Our first attempt to see the world ended with us staying in the Canaries for 8 months. Our plans of wandering through Thailand have to wait for a better time, all because our stay on Ko Lanta stretched from a couple of days to almost two months... and we still haven't had enough of it. It seems like the island life is much more attractive to us than staying in our own countries, or even travelling itself - but why is that?
Living on Gran Canaria, we thought that maybe the lazy lifestyle and chilled out atmosphere were simply a part of the Spanish spirit and the mañana culture, but it turns out that nearly every island that we've stayed on in the last two years was much more laid-back than the rest of the country - whether it was in the middle of the overcrowded Halong Bay or next to nowhere in southern Laos. There have to be exceptions to this, but so far we've been lucky to end up in places where time seems to slow down and all the paradise cliches come to life.
CALM AND CHARMING
Even if you're the grumpiest traveller out there, you'd probably fall for the persuasive appeal of colourful sunsets, fresh breeze and soft sand under your feet. And it's not just the calm - it's also the attitude of people around you, especially noticeable on the small islands, where the local restaurant owners greet you with your favourite fresh coconut whenever you go out to eat something. There is this unique, special charm in the islets, similar to the atmosphere of little towns and villages.
Still... how long can you just go to the beach and back?
That's where the landscape comes into play - even the tiniest island we've been to had forests and huge waterfalls, easily accessible by bike. On Gran Canaria, you can wander off to the cliffs, sandy or rocky beaches, beautiful and challenging mountains, canyons and sand dunes... all of which are within an hour or two of driving, regardless of where you're staying. The Big Island in Hawaii is one of the most surreal places on Earth and has most of the world's climate zones, so you really can't complain about the lack of variety there. If that's not enough for you - go underwater! It's very probable that you can dive, or at least snorkel somewhere around the island, so if hiking's not your thing - put your fins on and jump into the water!
THE SIMPLE LIFE
And what's the most appealing is that even with this richness of outdoor opportunities, the island life is still much simpler, mostly because you just don't have the access to some of the things that are so easily available on land. While the big islands with developed infrastructures can cater for more needs, the smaller isles might have just one, understocked village store and no Internet. And it's fine, because after a couple of days you find out that you actually don't need all these supermarkets, clothes shops, gyms and fancy restaurants to be happy. It's a perfect place to just switch off, go offline and re-evaluate your lifestyle and daily habits.
Sounds too good to be true? There are also big disadvantages and nuisances to being stuck on an island... for example, being literally stuck on an island - something we barely avoided when a typhoon hit near the Cat Ba island in Vietnam and the transport to the main land was almost cancelled. In some places, there's a threat of a natural disaster, and in some others you'd have to get on a boat to get to the nearest medical facility in case of an emergency. As for the smaller, daily problems, we've got three words: giant flying cockroaches, constant visitors in your flat on Gran Canaria.
But should that stop you? A disaster can happen anywhere in the world and apparently some people keep cockroaches as pets... you can get used to a lot of things, and for us, nothing beats the proximity of the sea and great diving or hiking sites right at our doorstep.
If you think you'd also fall in love with the island life, think about squeezing one of these 4 places into your next itinerary:
- Gran Canaria: An island with great hiking opportunities, bigger and more developed than others on this list, but definitely worth visiting and immersing yourself in the laid-back Spanish culture. Perfect for party goers, but also lovers of nature and mountains.
- Ko Lanta, Thailand: Has everything you need, but not too much - so there's an Internet connection, but no big shopping malls. There are parts of the island that are almost empty (including some amazing beaches) and it's a perfect place for divers, especially if you're dreaming of seeing a whale shark or a manta ray.
- Don Khone, Laos: A teeny-tiny island in the south of Laos where you can rent a bike and drive around the fields or see the famous waterfalls. There's almost nothing going on - and that's why it makes for a great getaway spot.
- Cat Ba, Vietnam: While overcrowded during the Vietnamese holidays, it's almost empty outside the season. You can find there some great local guides who'd be happy to take you for a kayaking trip to the bat caves and hidden lagoons or hiking the mountains in the National Park. And it's one of the best climbing spots in Vietnam!
Hi! We're Manu & Kasia, a Swiss-Polish couple wandering about in Europe and South-East Asia. We get lost a lot and we write about our adventures and misfortunes on The Clueless Abroad. Drop by if you're also into diving, slow & responsible travel and island life!
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We Found Heaven on Earth (Whitehaven and the Whitsundays)
Camping on Whitehaven beach was a privilege and an amazing experience; we never wanted to leave!
We Found Heaven on Earth:Whitehaven and the Whitsunday's
There are corners of this world where the beauty is so pure and breathtaking, you find your anxieties, fears and your entire reality, disintegrate.
They're just too perfect, too natural and real, for any of your everyday concerns to matter. One corner that has had this affect upon us is Whitehaven Beach, the Whitsunday Islands.
Soft white silica sands, and a haven in every sense of the word, this sun-soaked azure paradise was somewhere we really wanted to visit before arriving in Australia.
Famous for the crystal waters, abundant with turtles, dolphins and other sea-life, if you only have a short time in Australia, it is a must-see.
We may have only just returned from a stunning island (Fraser, lower down the Queensland coast) but we knew this one would be special, so we headed here as soon as we could.
There are the usual backpacker tours that run all around the Whitsundays, most of which involve 2 days of island-hopping, with everyone crammed onto a boat, unable to experience anywhere for too long.
We got pursued by one of the tour salespeople whilst walking along Airlie Beach main street, vying for our business. He tried to say that you couldn't camp on Whitehaven, but we just smiled and walked off, knowing that the next morning we were booked onto a boat bound for the island, and the permits were all in place. Ignorant or just trying to fool us into handing over cash for the easy option of a backpacker tour, we were so glad that we had done our research into this place.
Getting the independence to camp on the beach seemed pretty amazing compared to spending $500 to share a tiny boat with 12 others, and only getting to spend around an hour at each destination.
We used a water taxi to get to Whitehaven (we used Scamper, who arranged permits for us, which cost $155 for a return trip, plus $40 for a camp kit which has everything 2 people might need, plus $15 for stinger suits) and pitched up for two nights in the small camping ground. By camp-ground I mean the patch of land set back only a few steps from the waters edge, with space for very few tents, sheltered by a smattering of trees, and frequently visited by guana's and wallabies.
The site itself is $5.50 per night, a standard permit cost in a national park in Australia, which is super reasonable considering you get the privilege of sleeping, eating, drinking (and using a relatively luxurious long-drop toilet) on one of the most pristine stretches of beach in the whole of Australia.
Some curious guanna's made their presence known straight away, trampling around the site to see what goodies we had brought.
During the day we snorkelled and just revelled in the beautiful warm ocean. At one point a boat which was anchored just off the shore, was also providing shelter to hundreds of little fish, all of whom went crazy for the fish feed that was thrown overboard at us!
We truly were away from it all, wrapped up in the quiet sounds of mother-nature, the gentle lapping of the ocean, an expanse so clear it doesn't feel real.
Hannah with a fish for a head!
In fact it feels so smooth and clean to swim in, it's a struggle to get out. Although you wear a full-body stinger suit if your going to swim out properly, as this area is notorious for the Irukanji, a deadly jellyfish. It may look a bit daft but the last thing you want on an island is sting!
I know its probably odd to bring a laptop to a deserted island, but I knew once the dark evening descended I'd probably feel inspired to talk about it all!
We were 3 of only 5 people in the camp-ground, and thus the only people on the whole island overnight, bar a few boats moored just off the shoreline, the only things punctuating the landscape with their lights and engine noise.
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DAY 2
On our second day we did a 2hr walk along the beach to reach the end point, a famous expanse of shallow waters often seen on postcards and mostly photographed from Hill Inlet. We didn't fancy the mountainous climb in our flip-flops so we just did a pleasant flat walk, followed up by more snorkelling.
We saw lots of stingrays but they are so flighty we could never get too close. We also saw some tiny sharks! Tiny as in the size of large fish as opposed to the size of a boat...
We both got a bit burnt on the walk back, the sun beating against our backs. We decided to brave a quick swim without our stinger suits and its just ridiculous how water can feel so smooth and soft.
That night after dark we walked again down to the edge of the sand, dipped our toes in the dark gentle waters, and just marvelled at the beauty around us. I even got a bit teary-eyed. It is simply stunning beyond what I could of expected or what I can get across. You really have to experience it to understand that its more than just a pretty beach.
So I guess you could say we quite liked Whitehaven, just a bit.... it truly has stolen our senses and given us some peace, if only for two days, but we'll probably think about it forever. It will be the happy place we go to in our minds when we're on another 13 hour coach ride (we travelled from Rainbow to Airlie overnight and our feet are still swollen from the long trip).
It truly is the most beautiful place we have seen in Australia, alongside the Blue Mountains and Port Stephens.
Thanks for reading!
Hannah and Taran here. We hail from Southern England, where we met online and are now realizing our mutual passion for travel here at NomaderHowFar. We discuss Nomadic Living, Simplifying your Life and Long-term Travel, to empower, motivate and inspire our readers. Get to know us here!
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Taran & Makoto here, together we form Nomader How Far photography.
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