Tristan da Cunha

There is some subjectivity about which place is the most isolated, but the islands of Tristan da Cunha have one inarguable distinction: They are the most remote inhabited place in the world, about 1,700 miles from Cape Town, the nearest inhabited land mass. The South Atlantic group consists of four islands — Tristan, Nightingale, Gough and Inaccessible — but all 271 Tristanians live on Tristan (perhaps owing to the island’s remoteness, there are only seven surnames among them). Visitors are welcome to Tristan, but new residents have to be approved by the Island Council. “Given that are no spare houses here,” David Morley, Tristan da Cunha’s administrator, said in an e-mail message, “very little private sector activity/industry and very few available jobs, it would not be a straightforward matter for someone to come here to settle.”