Next-to-impossible destinations

What counts as "next-to-impossible" is subjective and elastic, but it has to mean something more challenging than "inconvenient and uncomfortable". The places described here are difficult to access for a variety of reasons: the list isn't exhaustive, and your own ingenuity is an essential component of reaching them.

Broadly, what's included here are:

• Remote destinations: These are the main focus of this page. They lack regular transport to get in or around: you need to drive, sail, fly, ride or hike there yourself or join expedition transport. These places may have no permanent population or services. They may lack even basic airstrips, safe landing points, dirt tracks, drinkable water, or means of communication with the rest of the world. They may have a harsh climate, so even just staying alive is a constant preoccupation. There may be little to eat (and that little may be protected if it's a nature reserve). And then there's the business of getting back from the place, which – as many explorers found to their cost – may be a bigger challenge than getting in. This page doesn't include places with no hope of return, though it's conceivable that future interplanetary journeys might be one-way trips. See also Other destinations, which includes several remote islands and similar spots.
• Politically restricted destinations: some people can travel there but others may not, or only within constraints. Examples are:
  • North Korea: foreigners can only visit as part of an approved party on an approved itinerary, with overt minders and not-very-covert agents dogging their every step. Nevertheless such trips, though expensive, are relatively common, and trouble-free so long as you keep your nose clean. Iran is an intermediate case: EU citizens can get visas and tour with little difficulty. It's quasi-North Korean for US and UK citizens, though their Iranian diasporas can make family visits.
  • Some of Saudi Arabia: Tourist visas were introduced in 2019; before that the whole country was open only to foreigners coming for pilgrimage, transit or business/work. Still, the holy cities and pilgrimage destinations of Mecca and Medina are open only to Muslims (Mecca is completely closed; Medina's main pilgrimage site of the Prophet's Mosque is closed, but the rest of the city is now open to non-Muslims). Many other Muslim countries have refused admission to Israeli passport holders, or to those whose passports show they've visited Israel, though this list is dwindling.
  • Trouble back home: the destination might welcome you, but your own country might restrict or punish you. It's difficult for US citizens to visit Cuba, and the UK has used revocation of citizenship as a political weapon against those travelling to the conflict in Syria.

• Some countries have large sparsely-populated regions where most destinations are difficult to access. There may be few or no good roads, or no roads at all, and no commercial scheduled boats or flights. Bush planes can often be used, but that tends to be expensive. Examples include Australia's Outback, much of Canada's North and areas such as Krasnoyarsk Krai in Russia. Most of the world's main tropical rainforests and deserts are also in this category. On the other hand, some places in those regions may be easy to get to; for example Uluru or Whitehorse can be reached either by highway or on commercial flights.
  Such regions are mentioned below, but we do not try to list all the hard-to-reach destinations within them; see the region and destination articles for that.
• Temporary difficulties, such as natural calamity, civil upheaval or strife. For these, warnings are posted on the relevant pages. In 2024, many parts of the world remain in this category because of COVID-19. The assumption is that the difficulty will pass and normal travel will resume, but it can be difficult to predict when.
• Restricted areas. Everywhere has places where you'd be in big trouble if you trespassed, especially around borders and military installations, but they're not included here if they're just a small patch within an otherwise accessible destination. Similarly, Chernobyl has areas that remain unsafe to enter, but it was a mainstream visitor attraction for one organised tour before the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine shut down non-essential travel. Larger restricted tracts may exist in conflict zones, for instance around the borders of Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, while the rest of those countries remain safe.
• War zones: simply don't go there: in 2024 the prime examples are Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Libya, Ukraine and Somalia. These do have transport for getting in and around, though it may be restricted to combatants and essential workers inbound, while a desperate population tries to flee outbound. The war may become a "frozen conflict" dragging on for decades, with much of the country off limits, and other areas subject to bomb attacks, murderous armed gangs, and collapsing buildings. Even after the conflict ends, expect ruined infrastructure and facilities, residual restrictions and checkpoints, and suspicion of strangers: whose side were they on? Are they worth kidnapping? Landmines and bitterness may persist for a century. But in the early 21st century, these war-torn areas are small by historical standards. The wars in Yugoslavia, Vietnam and Cambodia seemed interminable yet now these are friendly mainstream destinations, so the current conflicts and travel restrictions surrounding them are unlikely permanent.
• Fictional destinations. Narnia, Hogwarts and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea are easy to reach by reading a book or watching a movie. Several real destinations associated with works of fiction are described on the Fiction tourism pages, e.g. Game of Thrones filming locations. A related group are the Phantoms, non-existent places described by people who'd seen them. (That's aside from misidentified places, such as the "Indies" reached by Christopher Columbus.) They range from the tropical Kingdom of Prester John to the icy Aurora Islands, but they simply don't exist and never did.
• The past and future: Without the benefit of time travel, the past is effectively inaccessible, and the only way to reach the future is to wait for time to pass. Every major tourist destination, and most places off the beaten path, have opportunities for historical travel, ranging from intimate local museums to preserved historical buildings and features.

• Most of the 🌍 Sahara desert, aside from some towns near the edge of the desert, such as Timbuktu, and areas close to the handful of roads and tracks here (mostly in Algeria). The desert is huge, comparable in size to the United States or China.
  • 🌍 Bi'r Tawīl is 2060 km² of landlocked desert territory that lies between Egypt and Sudan but is not claimed by either country. There are no permanent residents, roads, or other services.
  • The 🌍 Tibesti Mountains. Unbridled chaos.
• The 🌍 Congo Rainforest in Central Africa is the second largest in the world, remote and sparsely populated.

Antarctica and its surrounding ocean are hazardous and icy cold, yet in summer some parts are mainstream tourist destinations, on cruises and air excursions. These include the west coast of the northern part of the Antarctic Peninsula, the South Shetland Islands north of the Peninsula with the settlement of Villa Las Estrellas, Ross Island with McMurdo Station, the South Pole, and the north coast of South Georgia Island. But to venture even 1 km from this beaten tourist path would plunge you into polar dangers, only survivable by a robust expedition. Places beyond those, outlined here, are always expedition territory even in summer. And then winter sets in: temperatures drop below -40° (C or F, take your pick), and katabatic winds of hurricane force drop this to -80°C. There is little or no daylight. The sea freezes so there's no boat access, and the airstrips may be unusable. A few research stations are staffed year round but most close for winter. There's not even wildlife to eat, as these depend upon access to an unfrozen sea. Yes, too cold and remote even for penguins, think carefully about that before making your travel plans. Roughly north to south are:

• 🌍 French Southern and Antarctic Lands are a scattered group. A ship calls at the largest, Kerguelen, four times a year; the scattered islands of the Indian Ocean are off-limits; others like 🌍 Île Amsterdam or 🌍 Île Saint-Paul require permits (but the chance you'll receive one is next to zero). Winds are often storm force in these "Furious Fifties", but the sea is unfrozen so expedition ships can get in year-round.
• 🌍 Crozet Islands are a small archipelago that are 1000 km west of Kerguelen. They are owned as a territory of France, the same as Kerguelen. The islands are visited 4 times a year by a support ship.
• 🌍 Heard Island and McDonald Islands are 500 km southeast of Kerguelen. They're Australian although they're more than 4,000 km (2,500 mi) from the mainland. You can land only by expedition under permit. Otherwise, visiting these islands is illegal.
• 🌍 Bouvet Island, a Norwegian territory, is the remotest island in the world, some 2600 km southwest of Cape Town. The seas are rough and there's no harbour, so you may need to helicopter in from ship to shore. The island is a wildlife reserve.
• 🌍 South Georgia Island is a cruise destination along its north coast. The mountainous interior and exposed south coast are expedition territory. Trips sometimes re-create Ernest Shackleton's trek from King Haakon Bay on the south coast to Stromness Bay to bring help to his marooned men.
• The South Sandwich Islands are the volcanic arc of islands further south. Cruises sometimes sail by but landing is difficult.
• Inland Antarctica: Apart from the relatively easily-visited South Pole, all of the interior ranks as next-to-impossible. East Antarctica has the 🌍 Southern Pole of Inaccessibility, the South Geomagnetic Pole, and the coldest place on earth. In West Antarctica, 🌍 Marie Byrd Land is the largest tract of land in the world not claimed by any country. Also Antarctica's highest mountain, Mount Vinson, and highest volcano, Mount Sidley, are here.

• While the southernmost third of Siberia is easily accessed, 🌍 Northern Siberia is nothing more than wilderness for thousands of kilometers; the same goes for most of the 🌍 Russian Far East. In winter, this region hosts the Pole of Cold, the coldest place in the northern hemisphere. Even traveling along the arguably most important road in easternmost Russia, the Kolyma Highway, is somewhat of an expedition. Russia is also known for its closed cities, such as 🌍 Norilsk. Often located rather off the beaten path, these are related to military, nuclear or space activities, and entry is by special permit only. There are also cities which were formerly closed but are accessible today; the most important of these is Vladivostok, main base of the Russian Navy in the Pacific.
• Access to 🌍 North Korea is strictly controlled and unless you're doing business with the government, the only way to get legally in was on a tour. Before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down non-essential travel into the DPRK this was surprisingly easy from some countries; most tours started from China and had Chinese-speaking guides. Only a few places in the country were open to tourists including some places in Pyongyang and environs and Panmunjeom at the South Korean border (and possibly places along the road). Some tours also allowed travel overland between the Chinese border and Pyongyang by train. However, almost all of the rest of the country is strictly off-limits, as is even leaving your hotel without your guide. A few foreigners have been arrested for proselytism and minor thefts, and these resulted in serious diplomatic incidents.
• Much of the 🌍 Himalayas, including previously unclimbed mountain peaks as described below. The Himalayas form part of a large mountainous area stretching into Central, South and East Asia with all of the world's summits that are higher than 7,000 m. The Pamir range, Nuristan and the Wakhan Corridor at the western end of the Himalayas are particularly isolated areas.
• 🌍 Nuristan. This is the most isolated area of Afghanistan; it was not until the late 19th century that the Afghans conquered it and the first Europeans reached it. 
• 🌍 Loulan Ruins (楼兰遗址) (Ruoqiang, China). A ruined city in the Lop Desert. The city was the capital of a small kingdom of the same name, which began to flourish from the 2nd century BC onward. The city was abandoned in the 4th century AD, apparently due to the Tarim River changing course and depriving the city of its water supply. Loulan is probably one of the hardest places in China to visit. A special permit is required from the Ruoqiang County government, which requires a lot of paperwork; the area is under military control. The permit is also very expensive, particularly for foreigners. The trip itself is likely to be rather challenging, as the Lop Desert is very inhospitable and prone to violent sand storms. (updated Feb 2021)
• Chang Tang Plateau in northern Tibet, most of which is over 4,000 m (13,000 ft) above sea level, and is only inhabited by a few nomads. It has the largest no-man's land in China, and entry there is prohibited without permission.
• Aksai Chin is a very deserted plateau and is the Chinese part of Kashmir. Pretty much all of the region is over 5,000 m (16,000 ft) above sea level, and the only thing that exists there are a few glacier lakes and an isolated road that connects G219 with Xijiang and Tibet. It is completely uninhabited and there is zero infrastructure (except the connecting road). Although on rare occasions migrant nomads cross the region in the Aksai Chin road, crossing is prohibited without special permission.
• Okinoshima island is very close to the large city of Fukuoka, but its Shinto shrine is considered so sacred that only a few men, and no women, get permission to visit each year.

• The Arabian Desert, stretching across many Arab countries, is off the beaten path but there are highways and towns in parts of it, and much of the rest can be visited if you use a 4WD vehicle and are suitably cautious. It is fairly common, for example, for expatriates in Jeddah and Taif to go out along the Hejaz railway that Lawrence and his lads repeatedly blew up during World War I.
  • 🌍 Empty Quarter (Rub' al Khali). The most difficult and isolated area of that desert is the Empty Quarter, mostly in the southeast corner of Saudi Arabia but extending into Oman and the UAE. It is so remote that many map providers don't bother to pretend they know the exact national borders as they are disputed among the countries that abut this place. Almost no-one goes there; there are few roads and little water. 
• Also in Saudi Arabia, the city of 🌍 Mecca is difficult to get to if you are not a Muslim as entry is legally prohibited for non-Muslims year round. Before 2021, the city of 🌍 Medina was also closed to non-Muslims, but only the Prophet's Mosque is now restricted. Of course, several million Muslims visit both during the Hajj pilgrimage every year, many visit them at other times, and both are thriving cities with well over a million residents.
• 🌍 The Lut Desert, in Sistan and Baluchestan, Eastern Iran about 150 km east of Kerman, is an absolutely uninhabitable place and has one of the most hostile environments on Earth. Access is extremely difficult, since it is isolated and there are no connecting roads, except for a hidden road that only 4x4 vehicles can explore together with a tour guide. During the summer, ground temperatures can reach 71 °C (160 °F), thus making it the hottest place on Earth, especially in a region called Gandom Beryan (Toasted Wheat in Persian), a large plateau covered in dark lava. Visiting is life-threatening; during the winter it doesn't get much better. Even with strong sunscreen, severe sunburn may happen within 15 minutes of exposure, and in 1 hour time, death is possible, due to severe sunstroke in such temperatures. Getting lost here, even with all the equipment and hundreds of liters of water, will often be fatal and rescue will not be available.

Save for the North Pole, which can be reached on an expensive tour, there's no place within 1,000 kilometers of the pole that wouldn't require an expedition to get to. The way in is by plane, ski or dogsled — as much of the ocean is covered by thick ice around the year going by boat is probably not an option (but carrying one may be necessary for much of the expedition, to get from one ice field to the next).

• 🌍 Bear Island — administratively part of Svalbard, Bjørnøya is located between that archipelago and the Norwegian mainland. The island has a meteorological station and is fairly frequently visited by scientists of different fields.
• 🌍 Franz Josef Land is an uninhabited and largely ice-covered archipelago of almost 200 islands located between Novaya Zemlya and the North Pole. It’s a military zone, and you would need a permit from the Russian military to enter. In Soviet times no outsiders were allowed in, and since then, only three non-Russian expeditions have been granted permits to conduct expeditions there. If all else fails, a couple of the islands are visited on some icebreaker cruises to the North Pole. The islands are also part of the Russian Arctic National Park, a project to protect Arctic wildlife, and therefore reportedly a good place to see Arctic wildlife.
• 🌍 Jan Mayen — from Tromsø some 2/3 of the way to Greenland. Provided you get permission to visit, you can climb the world's northernmost active volcano. You won't be alone on this island, as Norway has military and meteorological staff stationed here. Depending on the circumstances you may get in quite comfortably on a Norwegian Air Force flight.
• 🌍 Novaya Zemlya, located about 500 km northeast of the Kola peninsula, is a mountainous archipelago of two islands, inhabited only by Russian military staff (most of them in the town of Belushya Guba in the south) and you will unsurprisingly need a permit to be allowed in. Due to its remoteness, it was chosen as a test site for nuclear bombs during the Cold War — indeed the largest man-made explosion ever took place on the northern island in 1961 when the Tsar Bomba was detonated.
• 🌍 Severnaya Zemlya, discovered in 1913 as the last landmass to become known to man.
• 🌍 ATOW1996 or other islands off Northern Greenland. ATOW1996 was once sighted by an expedition and is considered the northernmost piece of permanent land on Earth, but there may be islands further north. Find one of those!

• 🌍 Rockall — an islet less than halfway from Scotland to Iceland, claimed by four countries. Getting here entails more than 400 km of sailing through the often rough North Atlantic, and as this is a steep rock jutting up from the ocean there are no harbours. Some people landing here have been winched down by helicopter; there's no place to land safely.
• 🌍 Tristan da Cunha, about halfway between Cape Town and Buenos Aires, is the most remote inhabited island in the world, with sporadic service ships visiting the island from Southern Africa (and visitors are allowed as passengers only if there is a spare room), but sailing your own craft there is also an option. The eponymous archipelago is considered the remotest archipelago in the world, and fittingly, one of the islands there is named Inaccessible Island.
• 🌍 Surtsey is an island in Iceland's Vestmannaeyjar archipelago, less than a century old, emerging from the ocean as a result of a volcanic eruption in the 1960s. Surtsey is a place where scientists study how plants and animals colonize newly formed land, and a limited number of scientists are the only people allowed to set foot on Surtsey. You can observe it from Vestmannaeyjar and occasional boat tours will allow a closer look, but they will not land.

• The "monk-republic" of 🌍 Mount Athos is off-limits to women. Even for men, in order to enter, visitors are required to apply for a special permit called a diamonitirion.
• Parts of the moon landscape that is the 🌍 interior of Iceland can be accessed by tour or you can rent one of those iconic Icelandic monster trucks and drive yourself (car rental agencies specifically prohibit you from attempting to drive one of their regular cars there). The tire tracks leading through the area are open to traffic only in the summer — elsewhere and other times of the year you have to get in and around on foot. There is very little life of any kind here, so don't expect any food stores or even edible vegetation. Save for the glaciers, the area is characterized as a "lava desert". On the upside, potable water is generally available. While you aren't going to experience any Siberian temperatures here, the weather is cool or cold year round with a lot of moisture, wind and snow, so do prepare accordingly. Moreover, this is one of the most volcanically active areas in the world, and volcanic eruptions and glacial lake outburst floods (jökulhlaups) are risks to be aware of. You can see some of this without travelling since parts of Game of Thrones were filmed there.
• Some uninhabited islands in the North Sea require a special permit to get to. An example of that is 🌍 Memmert in the East Frisian islands, which is mostly a bird sanctuary and only entered for research by ornithologists. While none of these islands are hard to get to, they are subject to very strict environmental protection laws, and save for the odd tour, there is no realistic way of legally getting there for non-ornithologists.
• The island of 🌍 Gogland (also known by its Finnish name Suursaari and Swedish name Högland) is very close to Kotka, Finland and used to have a vibrant tourism scene until the 1930s. However, when the island was ceded to the Soviet Union, it became a closed military area. Visits were briefly permitted by special permission after the Soviet Union dissolved, but the Russians have installed a military radar facility and the island was closed again.
• 🌍 Varosha, a suburb of Famagusta on the eastern coast of Cyprus was a major playground for the international jet set before 1974. Turkey captured it that year and fenced off the area, which became a ghost town after the hasty evacuation of the locals. Hardly anyone dared to go into the off-limits region until October 2020, when the Turkish military declared parts of it reopened for tourism.
• Offshore installations such as gas rigs are mostly off-limits, with a marine exclusion zone around them. Several wartime offshore forts, such as the "Maunsell Forts" in the Thames estuary east of London, can be visited on boat trips. Sealand 11 km off Felixstowe is a Maunsel Fort claimed as an independent micronation. What started as curmudgeonly eccentricity soon turned nasty when organised crime spotted its potential. Sealand in 2021 just has a resident caretaker who's unlikely to shoot at shipping, but approach with care.
• Pheasant Island is an island shared between France and Spain, whose access is almost impossible.

• 🌍 Diego Garcia, part of the British Indian Ocean Territory, is a military base with no access except by authorised UK and US military personnel and other government officials. In addition, several of the other islands of the territory are nature reserves that are also forbidden to access. Even the parts of the territory it’s legally possible for ordinary travelers to enter are difficult to get into due to requiring advance permits.
• 🌍 North Sentinel Island, one of the smaller Andaman Islands, is the home of the Sentinelese, who are often considered to be the most isolated group from the rest of humanity. An estimated 150 to 300 people, whose language differs from other Andaman islanders, this tribe has long refused any contact with outsiders (frequently violently so; they killed two fishermen in 2006 and a would-be missionary in 2018). No visitors are permitted by the Indian government, which claims de jure sovereignty over the island, to ensure the islanders' privacy and to keep them from the risk of getting infected with a disease they may not have developed immunity to.
• 🌍 Pulu Keeling National Park a desolate Australian national park in the middle of the Indian Ocean. You need a permit to come to this park, even if you're an Australian citizen or an ethnic Cocos-Malay, and if you are lucky enough to get here, the boat doesn't even stop at the island and you'll need to swim vast distances.

• 🌍 Area 51 is entirely off limits to anyone other than authorized personnel of the U.S. military. Other military facilities in the U.S.A. and elsewhere are usually equally off limits, but may have open house days when visitors are allowed to parts of them, even in places such as 🌍 Fort Knox.
• 🌍 Clipperton Island is an uninhabited "piece of France" in the Pacific Ocean some 1,120 km southwest of Acapulco. Bring your own boat and be careful with the reefs around the atoll. Officially you'll need a permit from the authorities on French Polynesia to visit unless you're a French citizen — there are no border controls, but the French Navy occasionally visits the island.
• The 🌍 Darién Gap between Panama and Colombia will really upset your pan-American road trip. 100 km of impassible jungles and swamps interrupt the Pan-American Highway from connecting the two continents. The region is also the operating area of several armed groups that have in the past targeted "wealthy" westerners for kidnappings. Most bypass the area, either by air or by sea. Archaeological expeditions do visit the Darién Gap, with as a major goal protecting the local tribes.
• Inner and northern Greenland doesn't have the airports and ports most settlements on the coast have. You will need an expedition permit from the Danish authorities to visit 🌍 Greenland's interior. You have to bring everything you need with you, as most of the island is just a huge glacier.
• 🌍 Guadalupe Island is an island located nearly 320 km (200 miles) off the coast of Mexico. The closest most will get to the island is Great White Shark tours a few miles from the island. There are no tours onto the island yourself, so if you want to go there and you don't want to go by boat, feel free to swim or try to land a plane at its "airport" where multiple planes have crashed!

• 🌍 Navassa Island, an uninhabited small island 56 km west of Haiti, is a disputed territory claimed as an unorganized unincorporated territory of the United States. Haiti also claims the island. Under U.S. law, you must obtain a permit to visit the island from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Office. On Navassa Island you can find an abandoned lighthouse and possibly remains of buildings related to 19th-century guano mining (in which accumulated bird droppings were extracted as fertilizer).
• Various parts of 🌍 Northern Canada and 🌍 Alaska are accessible only by bush plane or, if uninhabited, have no transportation at all. Nunavut by road is not an option. On 🌍 Ellesmere Island, scheduled bush planes reach Grise Fiord, but travel further north is by general aviation charter or military aircraft only. Overall, the area can be compared to similar latitudes in Russia with hundreds of km between settlements, extremely cold winters and occasional military installations.
• A few isolated coastal fishing outports in eastern Canada are accessible only by sea (or air); much of northern Labrador, a few villages on the rugged 🌍 southern Newfoundland coastline and a stretch of eastern Quebec's 🌍 North Shore) east of Kegaska and west of Blanc-Sablon simply have no road. Many of the smallest, most remote villages have been abandoned.

Unlike the rest of the continents, which can be traversed overland, Oceania is spread over the Pacific Ocean with only one national land border; between Papua New Guinea and Indonesia on the island of New Guinea. Some of the world's least visited independent countries are here, including the least visited ones: Nauru and Tuvalu. For thousands of the islands and atolls you need your own boat or (sea)plane to land. Some places in northern Oceania are US military bases that do not allow tourists in.

• 🌍 Arnhem Land – a large area of the Northern Territory of Australia, mostly sacred land, about the size of Austria, but with fewer than 5,000 people. Although Kakadu National Park is easily accessible, that is only a fraction of Arnhem Land. For other parts, you'd need a permit which takes time, and access is mainly by the two poorly maintained roads, closed during wet season.
• 🌍 Ashmore and Cartier Islands; only one or two commercial cruises a year, otherwise you have to come with your own vessel. No inhabitants, only fishermen, long-haul yachters and scientists land occasionally.
• Parts of the 🌍 Australian Outback; especially the western half of the country. The Gunbarrel Highway and the other couple of routes are very much off the beaten track and include hundreds of km without any service stations, services or settlements. If you go off that highway, you're pretty guaranteed to be on your own. Be absolutely sure you're carrying enough water and other supplies, and advise others of your itinerary. During the Australian summer, daytime temperatures may approach 50°C (120°F). If you are going to pass through Aboriginal lands, obtain a permit from the local authorities.
• See Antarctica above for Heard Island and McDonald Islands 500 km southeast of Kerguelen.
• 🌍 Kent Group is an island group in the Bass Strait with the only signs of human settlement being a 19th-century lighthouse (which is still the tallest in the Southern Hemisphere at 305 m above sea level). The island group is over 55 km via some of the world's roughest waters, but it still receives a bit under 1000 visitors a year.
• Much of the 🌍 Highlands of New Guinea remains out of reach, due to the thick vast forests. There are very few roads in the region, and none of them fully cross the highlands. There are also zero border crossings between the PNG-Indonesia border
• New Zealand Subantarctic Islands — you can only visit them on the occasional expedition cruise ship
• Most of 🌍 Northern Australia excluding some cities like Darwin or Cairns remain very inaccessible most of the year, while it gets even harder to access during the wet season and roads are closed for around four months of the year. Other places such as 🌍 Torres Strait Islands get even harder to visit with those islands being almost 1300 km from the nearest city (excludes small towns)
• 🌍 Palmerston Island – an isolated island inhabited by 50 or so descendants of one British sailor and his Polynesian wives. If you have a yacht and want to visit, call ahead to see if there's anything they want you to bring for them.
• 🌍 Paracel Islands – a disputed territory in the South China Sea. China has established a few settlements by extensively reclaiming land, but entry is restricted to mainland Chinese citizens.
• 🌍 Pine Gap – can be claimed as "Australia's Area 51". Pine Gap is an Australian-American military base used as a satellite tracking station, but apart from that, little is known about this place out in the public. Additionally, it is one of the few places in Australia where they drive on the wrong side of the road (i.e. right side of the road)
• See #Indian Ocean above for Pulu Keeling National Park
• 🌍 Pitcairn Island — the only ship regularly visiting the islands (with a population of 47) does so four times a year, and even getting to Mangareva where the ferry starts from involves an infrequent flight from Tahiti.
• 🌍 Point Nemo — also dubbed the pole of inaccessibility, this remote patch of ocean is so far away from any land that it is used as a spacecraft cemetery; over 300 space stations, rockets and satellites were de-orbited and carefully steered to crash down in the area, now waiting to be (re)discovered on the ocean floor by divers.
• 🌍 Sisia — Tropical desert islet, part of the Vava'u group of Tonga. Getting to Sisia is not impossible, but it can only be accessed by cruised sailboat within its deep-sea anchor.
• 🌍 Temoe — Remote atoll in the far southeastern end of the Tuamotus, about 37 kilometres further from the Gambier Islands. Temoe lacks navigability within its deep lagoon, which makes it unreachable for vessels.
• Most of the US Minor Outlying Islands are in remote locations in the Pacific Ocean (except for Navassa Island, which is in the Caribbean). Almost all are uninhabited, like 🌍 Baker Island, where public entry is only by special-use permit from the US Fish and Wildlife Service and generally restricted to scientists and educators. The US groups this disparate collection of islands for statistical purposes; most contain little other than abandoned World War II facilities or historic mining of bird excrement (guano) as fertiliser.
• 🌍 Vaitupu — The largest island in Tuvalu, where they live a Western lifestyle mixed with local traditions. There is no harbour on Vaitupu, but also has a wharf as direct possible access for small boats from inter-ships.
• 🌍 Wake Island – properly speaking an atoll, is located in the Pacific between Guam and Hawaii. As it is a U.S. Air Force base and U.S. Army missile site, you will need a good reason for getting permission to enter. The same is true for some other Pacific atolls such as 🌍 Kwajalein.
• 🌍 The Wollemi Pine – in Wollemi National Park near Blue Mountains, Australia, the last surviving member of a genus that otherwise became extinct tens of millions of years ago. The species is classified as endangered and the location where it was found has been kept secret. Searching for it would be challenging since the park is large and almost all wilderness and even if you think you've found it, you don't know whether it's the actual pine, or whether it's a pine replanted. Wollemi Pines propagated from those in Wollemi National Park can be viewed at many other locations in Australia, and can even be purchased.

• 🌍 Isla Malpelo (Colombia) — A military outpost and an offbeat diving destination, 400 km out in the Pacific Ocean. You need a special permit from the National Natural Park Office in Bogota, and you have to anchor offshore and sleep on your vessel. A company in Panama reportedly arranges fairly expensive diving expeditions to this island.
• 🌍 Ilha da Queimada Grande (Brazil) - Otherwise known as 'Snake Island', this uninhabited island off the coast of São Paulo is infested with its own endemic species of extremely venomous Bothrops insularis golden lancehead pit viper snakes. Travel to the island is forbidden, although scientists may get approval.
• Parts of 🌍 interior Brazil are still hard to get to and there are still some "uncontacted peoples" that have never met a person from the outside world.

• Cross between Asia and North America between the two 🌍 Diomede Islands — Little Diomede (an American island west of Alaska) and Big Diomede (easternmost point of Russia). This is the only place in the world, except Antarctica, where you can see land across the International Date Line. It's just a few km across, so the crossing by boat or walking across the ice in the winter is probably the easiest part. However, it's a challenge getting to either of the islands in the first place, and you will probably face a whole lot of paperwork to be able to cross the border legally. There are no real border stations there and citizens of almost all countries other than the United States will need a visa to enter the U.S. in their own vessel. Moreover, almost everyone needs a visa to enter Russia. In addition, foreigners need an additional special permission to enter 🌍 Chukotka, and since Big Diomede is host to a Russian military installation, you can expect it to be very hard to obtain permission to enter.
• Confident and ambitious mountaineers rejoice! There are still many unclimbed mountains in the world — that is, there are no records of anyone having climbed them yet. These are usually remote and/or particularly dangerous to climb. Despite modern technology, there's at best only rough information available concerning grades, dangerous sections, safe routes and such, so while you're there why not collect some information for future climbers? As you don't know what awaits you during your climb, you need to have mountaineering skills, knowledge and experience to cope with whatever you encounter. Even with proper maps and knowledge of good routes, few activities are as risky as mountain climbing, and if you need a recap of what dangers you may run into when mountaineering, you should choose a more commonly climbed mountain for now. When planning a trip like this remember that some mountains are considered sacred and therefore may not be climbed — for instance this is why nobody has been to the top of 🌍 Gangkhar Puensum, the highest mountain in Bhutan and likely the world's highest unclimbed mountain.
• Perhaps you would rather go downwards instead? All over the world there are caves to explore and the longer they are the less likely it is that someone has set their foot there before. For example, go see if the legendary tunnel between Europe and Africa, from St. Michael's cave in the Rock of Gibraltar to the Cave of Hercules truly exists. Or find a longer cave system than the Mammoth Cave system. On these expeditions it is imperative to bring enough spare batteries and flashlights and even more importantly you will also need to devise some system for navigating so that you can find the path back to the surface. If a long and labyrinthine cave isn't enough, many have sections filled by water, so you need to dive also – the most difficult and dangerous environment to dive in.
• The oceans of the world — off the coast, that is. While there's likely not much to see above water hundreds or thousands of km from the nearest land, there may be a whole lot of things to see under water like marine life, coral reefs, underwater volcanoes and even forgotten shipwrecks no divers have seen before. If you have access to an extremely sturdy submersible, you can become one of the hitherto very few to visit the 🌍 Challenger Deep near Guam in the western Pacific Ocean, which at about 11 km below the sea level is the deepest known point on Earth. However this is not the place closest to the core of our planet. As the Earth is not a perfect sphere, that point is to be found somewhere in the Arctic Ocean near the North Pole and is approximately more than 13 km closer to the Earth's center. Take into account that this part of the world is perpetually covered by thick ice. For most of the deep sea there are not even any good maps or charts, let alone anybody who has gone there and lived to tell the tale. "Discovering" something new is rather easy, provided you have a good submersible and know how to use it. Besides the Challenger Deep, visiting other deeps in the trenches around the Pacific, such as Horizon Deep (10,800 m) near Tonga and Sirena Deep (10,732 meters) near Guam, would place you in an even more exclusive club. These places are inhabited by giant amphipods and other giant deep-sea creatures, and they are even more scarcely explored than the Moon.
• Space — While low earth orbit is reachable by the "general public" (if only a handful of multimillionaires), anything beyond the International Space Station is pretty much off limits even to state-funded missions as of 2019. The Moon was briefly accessible to the Apollo Program from 1969 to 1972, but the hopes that another country could return to manned lunar exploration after 2020 have yet to materialise. The "dark side" of the Moon, which faces away from Earth, has never been visited by humans. In the early 21st century, some companies have been developing spaceships to take tourists to space (defined as 100 km above Earth and beyond) for "only" a few hundred thousand USD, but as of 2019, these flights aren't operating. "Space diving" is another possibility to go very high up, though still not all the way to space. This entails ascending to 30–40 km above ground in a balloon, jumping down and possibly breaking the sound barrier before launching your parachute. In the same manner as extremely few have been to the Challenger Deep, there are very few people (aside from astronauts) who can boast of having travelled to several times the altitude of a passenger plane and about twenty times higher than normal skydivers.

Read up on the immigration and customs policies of the countries you will pass through and consider changing your plans if needed. Even if you don't need a visa, you usually still will need to bring your passport and enter and exit through official border crossings or at least get your passport stamped somewhere. If you're caught having no proof of when and where you've entered the country, expect to get fined, possibly jailed, deported and often banned from re-entering for a number of years, possibly for life.

Even if you could cross a border without a visa, you may need a visa in the case you're traveling in an unorthodox way such as in your own boat or plane. For instance, people who normally can enter the United States on the Visa Waiver Program can do so only on board commercial carriers or overland. Also, you may be carrying stuff that "normal tourists" don't, which may interest the customs officials, such as foods, radio equipment, or things that could be classified as weapons.

If the destination is an island, as is the case with many of the above listed places, a boat may be the best way to access it. On the downside, sailing for hundreds or thousands of kilometers takes a long time. This means plenty of opportunities for things going wrong: severe weather, someone falling sick, navigational errors or running out of provisions. Once you are there, you may not find any safe harbour. You will also need approximately the same amount of time and provisions for getting back.

If the place is on land, it's slightly easier to get there, but where there are no roads or tracks you may in the best case be able to get in with a 4WD vehicle and in worse cases only by foot or by riding on an animal (e.g. horse or camel). And also, just because Nunatsiavut is on the Canadian mainland, that doesn't mean it's time to put the boats away. As counter-intuitive as it may sound, there are places on firm land, sometimes hundreds of miles away from any coast, that are best accessed by boat because road or rail infrastructure simply does not exist. This used to be the case almost everywhere prior to the rise of passenger rail and aviation; it remains true for remote parts of the Amazon, for example.

A private plane is a fast way of getting in, but there are several drawbacks. You will need somewhere to land and take off safely, and you probably won't be able to get (exact) information about the terrain before actually landing. A hydroplane is probably better than a plane with a landing gear, not just for landing on water but also on sand, grass or snow. As with anything with an engine, you will need to carry enough fuel to make it there and back.

Helicopters have the undeniable advantage of being able to land almost anywhere, but they have a far shorter range compared to airplanes and cannot carry as many supplies. In some cases the only way to set foot on an island may be to anchor well off the coast and fly there by helicopter.

Some of the destinations require travel close to the North Magnetic Pole (located near Ellesmere Island) or the South Magnetic Pole (in the Southern Ocean approximately 100 km from the Antarctic coast towards Adelaide). The difference in direction between the magnetic north and real north gets bigger the closer you get to these points, which means magnetic compasses will not work as expected. Another challenge is that there are often no good maps of the destination. For getting around on land, satellite images can often be used as rough substitutes. On the other hand if you travel by boat you'd benefit from knowing where the reefs and seamounts are and if you're landing a plane, suitable places for landing.

No matter which way of transportation you choose for getting in, your vehicle should be in impeccable condition as should your driving, sailing, flying and navigational skills. Also, bring tools and spare parts and have enough skills in your team to fix anything—from radios to engines—that may break.

No matter how much planning and preparation you do, things may not turn out how you envisaged. You need to think on your feet and come up with a plan b. This could be due to any of a number of reasons:

• You get in an accident
• Your equipment and provisions get destroyed, stolen, lost or damaged
• You end up in the wrong place (shipwreck on a nearby island?)

Given this, it's a wise policy to befriend people along the way so you can trust them/ask them a favor in case you have an emergency of sorts.