Island love or island fever
How long could or would I last? #24
I’ve travelled to many islands. I love island paradises. I love being secluded and peaceful, away from the bright lights and concrete jungle of the big cities. I don’t get homesick. The longest I’ve stayed is five weeks on Langkawi Island in Malaysia. I’ve also spent two weeks in the Philippines and three weeks island-hopping in Hawaii. The shortest I’ve stayed (other than a day trip from Langkawi to Koh Lipe in Thailand) is overnight in Con Dao Island and Cham Island, both in Vietnam. I am an introvert, even a hermit at times, and I sometimes wonder if I would ever experience island fever if I were to stay on islands longer than the average tourist. I guess I would have to stay much longer than five weeks to find out.
Island fever is defined as “psychological distress, dysfunction, or disorder that causes significant stress, abnormal thoughts, and feelings in people who are temporarily or permanently staying or living on islands. It is a claustrophobic feeling that can also be triggered by being close to the coastline.” 1
I have also never lived permanently on a small island (unless you count the five weeks in Langkawi in a one-room space) and I have never experienced island fever. Australia is technically an island, so I do live on an island. A very large island. But I do not count it as an island in this sense, hence why I have stressed “small” island above. As a rule of thumb, the size of the island is inversely proportional to the onset of island fever, i.e. the smaller the island, the more rapid the onset of island fever.
One of the smallest, inhabited islands I’ve been to was West Island. The island you fly into when visiting Cocos Keeling Islands in the Indian Ocean and the island where the ex-pat community live (if you can call them that as they are mostly Australian and Cocos Islands is an Australian territory). There is also Home Island, inhabited by the Cocos-Malay and a limited number of foreigners, where I stayed for three of the seven days total I was in Cocos. It was on West Island that there were regular discussions about island fever at the local pub. I could see how younger people might find the small-town vibe stifling. You see the same folks day in and day out. You do the same work. You have a fantastic playground but that’s all you have. There was one pub and one or two other places to eat on any given night. Back in 2018 when I visited, the phone reception was dodgy. I went tech/phone free for the week, as you did not actually need it because everything you did need was so close by.
Island fever was definitely a thing there. The western locals always talked about going “off-island” for a week or two just to return to civilisation, have different conversations and reduce their island fever. One young couple was pregnant and they would go back to Perth to have the baby. The soon-to-be dad could not wait to be off-island. If you were an extrovert, as many of these people seemed to be, then you would definitely get island fever. It was also rare for these locals to visit Home Island, the other inhabited island in Cocos. Home Island quickly became my favourite, most likely because of the solitude, the friendliness of the locals and the lack of bogan Aussie service men and women (sorry to all my military friends - it is an extreme generalisation). It was here I found the peace I craved, the culture and the history lessons of the islands. I rode around this island on a bike, making friends with locals along the way.
Peace, relaxation and solitude is why I visit islands. An island holiday is my favourite holiday, particularly tropical islands. I don’t need to be the person seeing every tourist sight and sound around. I don’t need company to explore new places and old. I don’t need the hustle and bustle of cities, in fact I’d prefer not to be in a city nor to be around hundreds of others. I do when it’s necessary but when it’s not I’m quite content with my own company. I have lived in cities, but now I live in a small town. My town does not even have a set of traffic lights and I enjoy the peace, the quietness and alone time. I’m currently sitting with the backdoor open listening to the birds - that’s all I need. If you can’t hear birdsong in your own home are you even alive?
So in answer to my own question, I really don’t see me ever getting island fever. Or cabin fever, or any such craving for to be off-island. It wouldn’t matter if I was there for five days or five years. I would be quite comfortable with the solitary nature of living on a small island with limited outside contact, no city rush and less noise. It sounds like the ultimate lifestyle to me. I think I could last a long time and wouldn’t even mind becoming the eccentric hermit on an island. Much like old man Lloyd who owned and lived in Oceania House on Home Island where I stayed for a few nights after making contact with his wife. I was the only person in this mansion apart from him and it was one of the best stays of my life! Now, would you get island fever?
