If you're looking for an only-by-yach escape, Melanesia need to be at the top of the list. This newly accessible Eden, tucked between Polynesia, Australia <uiu Thailand, is composed of the four sun-drenched nations of Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and Fiji. Fancy volcanic hikes or Second World War wreck dives? Cetacean spotting or meeting indigenous locals? Bring your own boat.
Pack a mask and snorkel too. Melanesia's 2,000 islands, which are scattered like coral idylls across more than 3,000 nautical miles of empty sea, offer die greatest marine biodiversity this side of Raja Ampat. In fact, you'd best pack anything you may need, from shorts to submersibles. Infrastructure is near non-existent on the outer islands and those natural freshwater sinkholes (on Espiritu Santo, Vanuatu) and slide-down waterfalls (on Taveuni, Fiji) are too good to miss.
Sailing from the west, you will first arrive at Papua New Guinea. The most populated island of the region, with approximately nine million inhabitants scattered over an area the size of Spain, many living in rural isolated communities. A short hop away lies the Solomon Islands, an archipelago of more than 1,000 palm-fringed islands, the majority uninhabited, followed by a smaller cluster called Vanuatu, a seldom-visited region that boasts the world's biggest shipwreck and the active Mt Yasur volcano. Further on, there's Fiji, perhaps the most well-known Melanesian nation, with more than 300 colourful islands to explore.
Melanesia was named by 19th-century French navigator and explorer Jules-Sébastien-César Dumont d'Urville, who first divided the Pacific islands and classified the islanders as Melanesian, Micronesian and Polynesian. More than 1,300 languages are spoken in the region –
