Seniors, Interested in Island Hopping in the Pacific?

Wow, I never knew this: The Pacific Islands comprise 20,000 to 30,000 islands in the Pacific Ocean.  Seniors, grab your Pacific Ocean map, a great airline that covers the Pacific and join the crowd on a bunch of these islands.

• Melanesia means black islands. These include New Guinea (the largest Pacific island, which is divided into the sovereign nation of Papua New Guinea and the Indonesian provinces of Maluku, Papua and West Papua), New Caledonia, Zenadh Kes (Torres Strait Islands), Vanuatu, Fiji, and the Solomon Islands.
• Micronesia means small islands. These include the Marianas, Guam, Wake Island, Palau, the Marshall Islands, Kiribati, Nauru, and the Federated States of Micronesia. Most of these lie north of the equator.
• Polynesia means many islands. These include New Zealand, the Hawaiian Islands, Rotuma, the Midway Islands, Samoa, American Samoa, Tonga, Tuvalu, the Cook Islands, Wallis and Futuna, Tokelau, Niue, French Polynesia, and Easter Island. It is the largest of the three zones.

The region’s islands are classified into two groups, high islands and low islands. Volcanoes form high islands, which generally can support more people and have a more fertile soil. Low islands are reefs or atolls, and are relatively small and infertile. Melanesia, the most populous of the three regions, contains mainly high islands, while most of Micronesia and Polynesia are low islands.

Seniors Looking for an Island Paradise?

So seniors, if you care to hop around the Pacific, do check out this nice listing of Must See Destinations. With how many islands again? Wow!  Here are the Top Four for you to investigate.  How can anyone choose just four out of 20,000 to 30,000? I don’t know but investigate these as they must be quite special. If you are a beach bum do check out this site with the best beaches in all the Pacific.

Pacific Island Paradises now in its 20th year, is a magazine devoted entirely to the Pacific and will help you to become a well-informed traveler of the region. There are comprehensive editorials from Fiji, Hawaii and Tahiti to Micronesia, Samoa and less well known destinations such as Niue and Wallis and Futuna. Other information includes useful facts for travelers, visitor bureau contact details and over 300 pages of resort and hotel listings.

I’ve always said that I could well survive on one of the islands in the middle of the Pacific with abundant coconuts and pineapple. Could you? Why not check it out for yourself.  Be adventuresome!  Learn to paddle a canoe.  Drink two Mai Tais in a row.  Learn to hula.  Learn to drink coconut drinks.  Want to check out a particular island?  Here are just a few that will  provide a little orientation.  It has always seemed to me that if you were stranded in the Pacific you would not be far from an island like Tom Hanks in Castaway.  Amazing movie.

So how large is the Pacific Ocean?  I am a triviaholic so do look into this trivia as it is quite mind boggling.  It encompasses a third of the Earth’s surface, having an area of 179.7 million square kilometers (69.4 million sq mi) and that’s real big!  Enjoy your paddling around the Pacific.  jeb