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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.

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Australia Sweats Through Hottest 12 Months on Record

Australia has just sweltered through its hottest 12 months on record, a period of drenching floods, tropical cyclones and mass coral bleaching. DAVID GRAY / AFP/File
Australia has just sweltered through its hottest 12 months on record, a period of drenching floods, tropical cyclones and mass coral bleaching. DAVID GRAY / AFP/File
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Australia Sweats Through Hottest 12 Months on Record

Australia has just sweltered through its hottest 12 months on record, a period of drenching floods, tropical cyclones and mass coral bleaching. DAVID GRAY / AFP/File
Australia has just sweltered through its hottest 12 months on record, a period of drenching floods, tropical cyclones and mass coral bleaching. DAVID GRAY / AFP/File

Australia has just sweltered through its hottest 12 months on record, a weather official said Thursday, a period of drenching floods, tropical cyclones and mass coral bleaching.

Senior government climatologist Simon Grainger said the rolling 12-month period between April 2024 and March 2025 was 1.61 degrees Celsius (34.9 degrees Fahrenheit) above average -- the hottest since records began more than a century ago.

"This is certainly part of a sustained global pattern," he told AFP.

"We've been seeing temperatures since about April 2023 that were globally much warmer than anything we have seen in the global historical record."

The previous hottest period was in 2019, Grainger said, when temperatures were 1.51 degrees Celsius above average.

"That is a pretty significant difference," Grainger said.

"It's well above what we would expect just from uncertainties due to rounding. The difference is much larger than that."

The record was measured on a rolling 12-month basis -- rather than as a calendar year.

Australia has also recorded its hottest-ever March, Grainger said, with temperatures more than two degrees above what would normally be seen.

"There has basically been sustained warmth through pretty much all of Australia," he said.

"We saw a lot of heatwave conditions, particularly in Western Australia. And we didn't really see many periods of cool weather -- we didn't see many cold fronts come through."

Sickly white coral

From the arid outback to the tropical coast, swaths of Australia have been pummeled by wild weather in recent months.

Unusually warm waters in the Coral Sea stoked a tropical cyclone that pummeled densely populated seaside hamlets on the country's eastern coast in March.

Whole herds of cattle have drowned in vast inland floods still flowing across outback Queensland.

And a celebrated coral reef off Western Australia has turned a sickly shade of white as hotter seas fuel an unfolding mass bleaching event.

The average sea surface temperature around Australia was the "highest on record" in 2024, according to a recent study by Australian National University.

This record run looked to have continued throughout January and February, said Grainger.

"We haven't seen much cooling in sea surface temperatures."

Moisture collects in the atmosphere as oceans evaporate in hotter temperatures -- eventually leading to more intense downpours and storms.

Australia follows a slew of heat records that have been toppling across the planet.

Six major international datasets confirmed that 2024 was the hottest year on record.

Scientists are unanimous that burning fossil fuels has largely driven long-term global warming.

Australia sits on bulging deposits of coal, gas, metals and minerals, with mining and fossil fuels stoking decades of near-unbroken economic growth.

But it is increasingly suffering from more intense heatwaves, bushfires and drought, which scientists have linked to climate change.