Solomon Islands
Lake Tegano
A coral atoll cradling the Pacific islands' largest lake, where endemic sea snakes patrol the shallows.
Salt water trapped inside a raised coral atoll, Lake Tegano stretches across the interior of Rennell Island like an inland sea ringed by limestone cliffs and dense forest. The surface is glassy at dawn, broken only by the wake of sea snakes — endemic species found nowhere else on Earth — gliding through water that was open ocean before the atoll lifted.
Lake Tegano is the largest lake in the insular Pacific, spanning roughly 15 kilometres across the eastern end of Rennell Island in the Solomon Islands' Rennell and Bellona Province. The lake and its surrounding forest form part of East Rennell, a UNESCO World Heritage Site — the first natural World Heritage listing in the Pacific. Over 200 small islands dot the lake's brackish surface. The endemic banded sea krait subspecies found here adapted to the lake's conditions after it was cut off from the ocean. Coconut crabs — the world's largest land invertebrates — thrive in the surrounding forest, and freshwater clams are gathered along the shore.
Solo
Rennell Island receives almost no visitors. Exploring a UNESCO World Heritage lake with endemic species and virtually no tourist infrastructure is the kind of deep-Pacific solitude that can't be manufactured.
Couple
The lake's isolation and the strangeness of its landlocked sea snakes create an otherworldly atmosphere. Canoe across a lake that was once open ocean, with nobody else in sight.
Family
Older children with a sense of adventure will find the endemic wildlife fascinating — sea snakes in a lake, coconut crabs in the forest, and a landscape that feels like nowhere else in the Pacific.
- At 155 square kilometres, Lake Tegano is the largest lake on any Pacific island — a body of water that formed when the surrounding coral atoll rose from the ocean floor.
- East Rennell, the raised atoll that contains it, is the first natural World Heritage Site in the Pacific Islands — an entire landscape that exists nowhere else on Earth.
- The lake's sea snakes are endemic subspecies that evolved from marine ancestors trapped when the atoll emerged; they patrol the shallows in numbers that make wading a quietly unnerving experience.
- Rennell has no regular commercial flights and receives visitor numbers in the dozens per year — access by small charter aircraft keeps the island in the category of destinations that most people will never reach.
Coconut crab — the island's prized delicacy — roasted whole over coconut-husk coals.
Freshwater clams from the lake shore, steamed in coconut cream with wild ginger.
Niagara Falls
United States
Six million cubic feet of water per minute plunging into mist you feel a mile away.
Santa Maria
Portugal
The Azores' oldest island hides a red clay desert and golden beaches the other islands lack.
Santa Maria
Cape Verde
Trade winds blast a long golden beach where kitesurfers trace arcs above turquoise Atlantic rollers.
Jericoacoara
Brazil
Windswept dunes where the sun melts into the sea from a natural stone arch.
Marovo Lagoon
Solomon Islands
Turquoise corridors between coral walls where master carvers paddle ebony sculptures to your canoe.
Skull Island
Solomon Islands
Ancestral skulls stacked in coral shrines on a jungle islet, guarded by their descendants.
Kennedy Island
Solomon Islands
The coral speck where a shipwrecked JFK carved a rescue plea into a coconut shell.
Savo Island
Solomon Islands
Volcanic steam hisses through jungle where birds bury eggs in earth heated by magma.