A woman who lives on a ‘paradise island’ in the Pacific Ocean where Brits can move for free (sort of, but not really) has said it’s great.
The Pitcairn Islands are a long way away from anywhere else, and there are only around 50 people living there, but they have been trying to entice people to move there.
Many of the islanders are the descendants of a group of mutineers who took over the HMS Bounty in 1789, and later set themselves up on the remote island.
Given that there’s so few people living on the island, there have been attempts to get people to move there, with successful migration applications receiving a free plot of land to build a house on.
While there’s free land for successful applications, you’ll still have to pay to apply, and aren’t guaranteed to be approved, and then you’ve got to pay to build your home there.
One of the island’s residents said the place was a ‘paradise’, but it needs more people living there. (TikTok/@torikaw)
Speaking to the Daily Mail, Pitcairn Islander Torika Christian, a descendant of HMS Bounty mutiny leader Fletcher Christian, said there was pretty much no downside to living there, and life on Pitcairn was choc-full of ‘fishing, diving and community environment’.
However, she did say that you ‘definitely have to be comfortable with isolation’ if you want to live there, as there’s only a handful of people and the nearest place other people live is a very long way away.
She said: “Growing up here on the island, the isolation was something that I never really took notice of until I spent my high school years overseas in New Zealand,” she said, as kids on Pitcairn tend to have their primary schooling on the island before journeying to New Zealand for secondary education.
“In New Zealand, I discovered that there is a way out whenever you like. You could jump on a plane to Australia, America or wherever you wanted to.
“Here on Pitcairn, we have a supply ship called Silver Supporter that runs between the island and the Gambier Islands every week. This arrives on a Thursday and departs on a Sunday taking tourists and locals.”
Move to a Pacific island and get a free plot of land? Sounds great, but do you really want to be that isolated? (Getty Stock Photo)
Torika also told the Mail that Pitcairn really needs some more people living there and hopes that ‘willing community-friendly people’ will move to the island.
She said her home was ‘paradise’ and she wouldn’t want to live anywhere else in the world.
Of course there are downsides to being so isolated; the supply ship is the only reliable way on and off the island, and there aren’t facilities to treat serious medical issues there.
The island was also hit by a scandal in 2004 when a 13 men were accused of charges of sexual abuse against children and young adults, with all but one of one of them being convicted of at least some of the charges.
One of the convicted men, Shawn Christian, would go on to be elected the island’s mayor between 2014 and 2019.
