Uninhabited Japanese Island Offers Survival Adventures

Diaoyu Islands. Photo: AFP
Diaoyu Islands. Photo: AFP
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Uninhabited Japanese Island Offers Survival Adventures

Diaoyu Islands. Photo: AFP
Diaoyu Islands. Photo: AFP

Feeling ground down by the pressures of everyday life? Wish you could get away from it all? The island city of Iki in Nagasaki prefecture has an unusual and appropriate holiday destination, and its name is Tsumagashima Island.

There are many uninhabited islands that dot the coasts of Japan, and Tsumagashima, in particular, lies off the coast of Nagasaki. While humans did live on the island at one point, it was declared uninhabited in 2002, and since then has lain in relative obscurity—although people who fish treat the island as a especially lucky spot, according to the Japan Today website.

You can access the island with relative ease from Nagasaki's Indoji seaport, but it's far removed from civilization and the chance of bumping into strangers is practically zero, reported the German News Agency (dpa).

You can take also a 30-minute airplane ride from Nagasaki Airport. Prospective campers need not worry about the safety of the island—the campsite areas are being tended to and monitored by capable staff, which is currently undergoing a survival adventure of their own.

Camping on the island allows guests to try out a unique camping experience where they stake out their own lodgings, forage for food, fish, and cook their own meals using bamboo and camping tools.

And speaking of camping tools, only the barest minimum is included in the camping plan. Vacationers can also expect a beach reserved for their own use, a jungle expanse to venture through, and a stimulating environment without electricity or running water.

A two-day, one-night stay will cost 19,800 yen, while a three-day, two-night stay will cost 29,800 yen per adult. Elementary school students are expected to pay half of that price, while children younger than that can attend for free. Your party must consist of four people or more.

Don't worry if you aren't a serious camper because the island will also offer camping experiences for beginners where a qualified instructor will assist you on your survival experience.



What the Shell: Scientists Marvel as NZ Snail Lays Egg from Neck 

This handout picture taken on September 18, 2024 and released by the New Zealand Department of Conservation on May 8, 2025 shows a Mount Augustus snail laying an egg through its neck in Hokitika, New Zealand. (Lisa Flanagan / New Zealand Department of Conservation / AFP)
This handout picture taken on September 18, 2024 and released by the New Zealand Department of Conservation on May 8, 2025 shows a Mount Augustus snail laying an egg through its neck in Hokitika, New Zealand. (Lisa Flanagan / New Zealand Department of Conservation / AFP)
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What the Shell: Scientists Marvel as NZ Snail Lays Egg from Neck 

This handout picture taken on September 18, 2024 and released by the New Zealand Department of Conservation on May 8, 2025 shows a Mount Augustus snail laying an egg through its neck in Hokitika, New Zealand. (Lisa Flanagan / New Zealand Department of Conservation / AFP)
This handout picture taken on September 18, 2024 and released by the New Zealand Department of Conservation on May 8, 2025 shows a Mount Augustus snail laying an egg through its neck in Hokitika, New Zealand. (Lisa Flanagan / New Zealand Department of Conservation / AFP)

A rare New Zealand snail has been filmed for the first time squeezing an egg from its neck, delighting scientists trying to save the critically endangered meat-eating mollusk.

Threatened by coal mining in New Zealand's South Island, a small population of the Mount Augustus snail was transplanted from its forest habitat almost 20 years ago to live in chilled containers tended by humans.

Little is known about the reproduction of the shellbound critters, which can grow so large that New Zealand's conservation department calls them "giants of the snail world".

A conservation ranger said she was gobsmacked to witness a captive snail laying an egg from its neck -- a reproductive act well documented in other land snails but never filmed for this species.

"It's remarkable that in all the time we've spent caring for the snails, this is the first time we've seen one lay an egg," conservation ranger Lisa Flanagan said this week.

"We caught the action when we were weighing the snail. We turned it over to be weighed and saw the egg just starting to emerge from the snail."

Conservation department scientist Kath Walker said hard shells made it difficult to mate -- so some snails instead evolved a special "genital pore" under their head.

The Mount Augustus snail "only needs to peek out of its shell to do the business," she said.

The long-lived snails can grow to the size of a golf ball and their eggs can take more than a year to hatch.

They eat earthworms, according to New Zealand's conservation department, which they slurp up "like we eat spaghetti".

Conservation efforts suffered a drastic setback in 2011, when a faulty temperature gauge froze 800 Mount Augustus snails to death inside their climate-controlled containers.

Fewer than 2,000 snails currently live in captivity, while small populations have been re-established in the New Zealand wild.