If you're like me and just crave to be alone on an abandoned place or a desert island, well, this is totally for you.
This is a small, ring-shaped atoll located 1,120 km southwest of Mexico in the Pacific Ocean, and was named after John Clipperton, a British pirate.
Clipperton Rock in the south-east is the first thing you'll see
when approaching the atoll. It is a volcanic outcrop, 29 meters high,
and the only really elevated place on the island.
On the rock you may
find the ruins of an old lighthouse, erected by Mexico in 1906. If
you're short on scary stories at night, you can think of the last
lighthouse keeper, Victoriano Álvarez. After the other males on the
island had died in 1917, he found himself alone with 15 women and
children. He went mad and started raping and killing, until he himself
was killed by two of the women. Crazy, right? Well I really want to spend a night in an abandoned lighthouse in a desert island, totally a bucketlist thing!
How to visit:
Well, first, you have to get into the island... the island under direct authority of the French Government and
is a full part of the European Union. However, it is exempt from the
Schengen Area and therefore citizens from outside France need a permit
to visit Clipperton Island that can be obtained from the French High Commission in French Polynesia. Despite that, unless a French Navy patrol visits the island, there are obviously no officials on the island to check permits.
So, you can go by plain or by boat (there are no tourist boats that come here, you need to join an expedition or go in your own boat). Acapulco is a good port from which to start.
Be careful when you find it, because you can get your feet hurt because of the type of soil the island has.
