Jeremy Woodhouse—Digital Vision/Getty ImagesEven in the 21st century, there are places on the planet where few people tread. Lonely mountain tops, desert interiors, Arctic ice floes, or the vast frozen ice sheets of Antarctica are remote places that come to mind immediately. But what about faraway islands of adventure? Are there any that remain in this modern age? Some of the most-remote points on the planet are islands so far removed from other landmasses (or so far off the beaten path of air routes and shipping lanes) that they are sometimes easily forgotten by the rest of the world. This list of eight such places is only a sample of dozens that could be mentioned. All of the islands (or island groups, in some cases) are dependencies or outlying territories of larger countries, and all are remote fascinating places that continue to fire the imaginations of adventurers and explorers alike.

　　The Kerguelen Islands

　　Kerguelen IslandsGlacier in the Kerguelen Islands.(more)B.navezThe Kerguelen Islands are a group of windswept Indian Ocean islands filled with glaciers, mountains, rocky outcrops, and vast plains of tussock grasses and mosses. With a daily mean temperature ranging from 2.1 to 8.2 ⁰C (35.8 to 46.8 ⁰F), the Kerguelen Islands are not the first choice for human settlement, but the islands are a haven for seals, albatrosses, terns, and four species of penguins.

　　Spitsbergen

　　South Spitsbergen National ParkSouth Spitsbergen National Park, Norway.(more)BjoertvedtWith an area of 39,044 square km (15,075 square miles), Spitsbergen is the largest island of the Svalbard archipelago, and it is also Norway’s largest island. Given its location some 830 km (about 516 miles) east of the coast of Greenland and about 950 km (about 590 miles) north of the coast of Europe, it is no surprise that the island is covered in snow and ice and harbors a sizable population of polar bears. The island’s main settlement is Longyear city, or Longyearbyen, which sits less than 3.2 km (2 miles) away from the Svalbard Global Seed Vault—a secure facility built into the side of a mountain intended to safeguard the seeds of the world’s food plants in the event of a global crisis.

　　Pitcairn Island

　　The rugged coast at Bounty Bay, Pitcairn IslandPeter J. Anerine/Shostal AssociatesThis small volcanic island in the South Pacific—the only inhabited island of the British overseas territory of Pitcairn, Henderson, Ducie, and Oeno islands—is probably best known as the haven of the mutineers of the British ship HMS Bounty, who settled there in 1790. Today Pitcairn Island is at the center of one of the world’s largest marine reserves, a vast 830,000-square-km (322,000-square-mile) region of open ocean larger than the U.S. state of Texas.

　　Novaya Zemlya

　　Physical features of RussiaEncyclopædia Britannica, Inc.Two large Arctic islands and a handful of smaller islands constitute Novaya Zemlya (“New Land”), a Russian-administered archipelago separating the Barents and Kara seas along Russia’s northwestern coast. The two main islands, Severny (northern) and Yuzhny (southern), are aligned for 600 miles (1,000 km) in a southwest-northeast direction and are separated by a narrow strait, Matochkin Shar, which is only about 1 to 1.5 miles (1.6 to 2.4 km) wide. During the Cold War, Novaya Zemlya was the site of more than 100 nuclear tests between 1954 and 1990.

　　Tristan da Cunha

　　Gough IslandGough Island, part of the Tristan da Cunha archipelago, southern Atlantic Ocean.(more)Photo by Steven Chown in Gewin V (2005) Eco-Defense against Invasions. PLoS Biol 3(12): e429. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0030429The British overseas territory of St. Helena, Ascension, and Tristan da Cunha is made up of isolated islands. Tristan da Cunha, the southernmost inhabited island in the territory (along with a wildlife reserve made up of Inaccessible, Nightingale, Middle, Gough, and Stoltenhoff islands), is located approximately 2,100 km (1,300 miles) to the south of St. Helena, the nearest inhabited landmass. Tristan da Cunha itself is roughly circular, with a coastline of 21 miles (34 km) and a central volcanic cone (with a height of 2,060 meters [6,760 feet]) that is usually cloud-covered.

　　Easter Island

　　Easter Island: moaiMoai (busts) on Easter Island, Chile.Easter Island, Rapa Nui (“Great Rapa”), and Te Pito te Henua (“Navel of the World”) are names for a small triangular volcanic island in the South Pacific. Located 2,088 km (roughly 1,300 miles) from Pitcairn Island and 3,767 km (2,340 miles) from Santiago, Chile, the government that administers it, Easter Island may be the most-isolated place on the planet. This 163-square-km (63-square-mile) island is famous for its gigantic stone statues—the enigmatic moai—of which there are more than 600, and for the ruins of giant stone platforms (ahus) with open courtyards on their landward sides, some of which show masterly construction.

　　South Georgia

　　penguins on South Georgia islandGentoo penguins, South Georgia island.The island of South Georgia, which is part of the British overseas territory of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, resides in the Atlantic portion of the Southern Ocean, about 1,450 km (900 mi) east of the Falkland Islands and 4,790 km (2,976 miles) west of Cape Town, South Africa. Although the island and its nearby waters abound with animal life, human settlers on the island are few. A small number of scientists and support personnel maintain British Antarctic Survey stations at Grytviken on King Edward Point and at Bird Island, off the northwestern tip of the island, and constitute the island’s only inhabitants. The island periodically served as a base for whaling and scientific expeditions during the 19th century, but it is best known as the site of the final leg of the arduous journey made by British explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton, who first crossed South Georgia Island in 1916 while in search of aid for his ill-fated trans-Antarctic expedition.

　　Diego Garcia

　　Diego GarciaDiego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, as viewed from the International Space Station. (more)JSC/NASADiego Garcia is a curious v-shaped coral atoll in the center of the Indian Ocean. The island is the largest and southernmost member of the Chagos Archipelago, which is part of the British Indian Ocean Territory. The island serves as a massive air and naval support base for the United States and British militaries, owing to its strategic location between East Africa, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and Australia. (While there certainly is a lot of activity on this island, one could argue that Diego Garcia’s quasi-secretive military purpose justifies its inclusion in this list.) The island was once home to more than 1,000 islanders, who were removed from Diego Garcia in 1971 to make way for the island’s militarization and resettled to Mauritius and the Seychelles. These islanders and their descendants continue to sue for the right to return home.