Today we head to the Solomon Islands, a small nation of over 900 islands East of Papua New Guinea and northwest of Vanuatu.

The Solomon Islands are surprisingly much larger than I imagined. I imagined the Solomon Islands to be tiny, but it’s actually larger than Albania. Yes, I know Albania isn’t known for its great size, but this is still kind of surprising to me.

Apparently, The Solomon Islands receive almost no tourists despite looking completely idyllic. This may be partly due to the fact that in the early 2000s the Solomon Islands were plagued by economic crisis, political unrest and conflict. Australia deployed over 2000 peacekeeping troops. The situation is now more stable, but there are apparently lingering ethnic tensions.

Talking of tensions, the Solomon Islands are known for their skull caves. Essentially these are displays of human skulls collected by people who had killed and then decapitated their enemies. Now I really understand why tourism hasn’t taken off in the Solomon Islands!

I’ll round off today’s post with the fact that US President John F Kennedy was once marooned in The Solomon Islands in 1943 after his boat sank during World War II.