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The deathstalker scorpion, a Middle East native shown here in captivity, kills several people each year and occasionally hammers its stinger into the hands of hobbyist collectors. Photo courtesy of Flickr user Furryscaly.

Give me a rainstorm in the night, a herd of pigs trampling past, even a bear—but if I’m camping without a tent, spare me the bugs. Because it’s the little things in the woods that creep many of us out the most, and the thing is, not all of them are so little—and worse, some have fangs and a hundred legs. Centipedes that can overpower a snake, spiders a foot wide, rodent-sized scorpions and other creepy crawlers of the forest floor offer good reason to sleep inside a tent. For years, I only camped under the open skies. If it rained, I would wrap up in a tarp or sleep under the awning of a church. But one night in Portugal while reading a book by the light of my headlamp, a huge spider with legs like an imperial walker came dancing onto my tarp and into my lap like a mad dervish. I screamed, panicked, flew home and bought a one-person, three-pound backpacking tent. That doesn’t mean I always use it, but here are a few good reasons why I should:

Deathstalker scorpion (Leiurus quinquestriatus). The deathstalker scorpion just might have the coolest name in the animal kingdom. A Middle East native, it grows to four inches or more in length, brandishes a horrifying pair of pincers and lives up to its name. Often described as “very aggressive,” it hammers its stinger into many people every year, killing several. Most victims, though, just suffer extreme pain in the region of the bite, along with drowsiness, fatigue, splitting headaches and joint pain, with symptoms sometimes persisting for months. Meanwhile, most scorpions are less dangerous than simply creepy. David Quammen—an admitted arachnophobe—elaborates on this in his essay See no Evil, published in his 1988 collection The Flight of the Iguana. He writes, “…scorpions are perhaps the most drastically, irredeemably repulsive group of animals on the face of the Earth, even including toy poodles.” Tent, please.

Goliath bird-eating spider (Theraphosa blondi). The biggest of the tarantulas and the world’s largest arachnid, the Goliath bird-eating spider lives in the rainforests of South America. Its legs can span the width of a dinner plate (should it find its way into your kitchen cupboard) and it’s large enough that it can, with ease, kill and eat mice—not to mention birds. The animal’s fangs may be an inch long, and yes, they will inject venom. However, the bite of a Goliath bird-eater is hardly worse than a bee sting to a human—but for campers, do you really think that matters? No way. This beast is among the nastiest things that could skitter across your face in the dark night of the Amazon. Zip up your tent.

Giant desert centipede (Scolopendra heros). On a hot afternoon in September 2003, I was bushwhacking out of the mountains in the Baja California desert not far from La Paz. I fought and kicked my way through the thorns, ducking through tunnels in the brush, and finally made it to the quiet shore of the Sea of Cortez. I plopped down in the sand, my back against against a rock, opened my backpack, and went digging for my mask and snorkel—and then appeared the ugliest monster I’ve ever seen: a seven-inch centipede that came snaking out of the pack, right past my arms and on a trajectory for my face. It was, I’m almost sure, Scolopendra heros. I screamed in a howling panic, leaped from the sand, and went backpedaling into the water, where I fell on my butt and and watched the centipede vanish into a rockpile. This creature, I later was told, is poisonous and can, if it feels especially wicked, bite and deliver venom with its fangs as well as some of its legs. And you want a much, much nastier story? In a documented case in Arizona, a man put a garden hose to his mouth and turned on the faucet to have a drink—and can you guess who came charging out of the nozzle? S. heros scuttled right into his mouth and bit his tongue, leaving him in pain for days.

This giant desert centipede has overpowered and killed a lizard. A tent may block your view of a meteor shower, but it'll keep monsters like this from scuttling into your sleeping bag. Photo courtesy of Cabeza Prieta Natural History Association.

Bullet ant (Paraponera clavata). An inch long and known to jump from trees upon its victims, the bullet ant of Central and South America delivers what is said to be the most painful sting of any arthropod. It hurts like a bullet wound, people say, and the pain may persist for 24 hours. In the ant’s defense, Paraponera clavata is not aggressive unless bothered—so if you get stung, you must have asked for it. The ants also offer fair warning before attacking, emitting a musky odor and an audible “shriek.” If you detect anything of the sort while hiking in the Amazon, turn and run—or just suck it up and experience this phenomenal bite like a man,which is exactly what teenage boys in certain forest cultures do to prove their manhood. Anyway, the bullet ant’s bite rarely kills. 

Brazilian wandering spider (Phoneutria fera). Widely considered the most poisonous spider in the world, wandering spiders reportedly hospitalized about 7,000 people in Brazil alone between 1970 and 1980 and may have killed more people than any other arachnid in the world. Phoneutria fera is often regarded as the main offending species, but others of the same genus, including the Brazilian huntsman, have similarly toxic venom. The spiders are known to wander and explore, often hiding in clumps of bananas, and often entering homes to have a nap in the toes of a shoe by the doorstep or a vacant pant leg in the clean laundry pile—and surely a cozy sleeping bag would be a fine dwelling site for a wandering spider. Symptoms of a bite include pain, redness and immobility in the area of the bite. Paralysis and death by asphyxiation may follow. In survivors, tissue affected by the poison may die and rot away. Another bizarre symptom immediately following a bite in men is a painful erection lasting hours and sometimes causing impotence.

Mosquito (Family Culicidae). Consisting of 41 genera and more than 3,500 species in the family Culicidae, mosquitoes may not inspire nightmares or make our skin crawl the way that arachnids can, but what other element of nature so frequently ruins a night of camping? Whether on the boggy tundra, in the blazing desert or in the swamp country, mosquitoes may swarm us in clouds. Even a bona fide house with walls and a roof can’t always protect against mosquitoes, and in parts of the world people sleep with permanent netting over their beds. These insects insect may be the most dangerous, too: in 2003, malaria killed 3 million people—infected thanks to mosquitoes. And these bloodsucking disease vectors dealt me what was one of the most torturous nights of my life while camping (with no tent) on the shore of a mangrove lagoon in Mexico. After about 500 bites, I went stumbling into the village around midnight and pleaded with a bartender for bug spray. He said citrus juice was the most potent mosquito repellent—trick from his grandmother—and he threw a lime at me from his cocktail making tray. It didn’t work. After bite 2,000 or thereabouts I wrapped a towel around my head, jumped in the water and breathed through a snorkel until dawn brought relief.

The handsome face of the bullet ant, a New World jungle native whose bite may be the most painful of any arthropod on Earth. Photo courtesy of Flickr user EOL Learning and Education Group.

The Ginger Ninjas on the move in Guadalajara, Mexico. Where buses and airplanes would provide the horsepower for other touring bands, the Ginger Ninjas go by bicycle. Photo courtesy of the Ginger Ninjas.

Since the era of Elvis and the Beach Boys, cars and motorcycles have been a prominent element in the world of rock and roll—as vehicles for drag racing, carrying the band to nightclubs and generally showing off.

But some bands ride bicycles. The Ginger Ninjas—a folk-funk band from Northern California—is now touring in southern Mexico, and they got there, along with their instruments, by pedaling. A fully off-grid band, the Ginger Ninjas even use a pedal-powered sound system while performing. They are one of several musical groups that have rejected the resource-intensive lifestyle of most touring bands and, instead, opted for a cleaner, simpler alternative.

“I don’t want to be in Chicago tonight, Boston tomorrow and Tokyo the next,” said guitarist and singer Kipchoge Spencer, the Ginger Ninjas’ frontman. “It’s too consumptive of resources. Plus, there’s a sort of egotism that I don’t care for—like, ‘The world needs to see me so much that I’ll use up the Earth’s resources just to make it happen.’”

Spencer, 39, says that as his band gains popularity, demand is growing for his music—which he labels “mind shaking love groove folk funk roots explosive international pedal-powered mountain music for a pleasant revolution.” The call to play live shows increasingly far and wide, even abroad, is also growing louder. It’s the dream of virtually any group of musicians, but it’s a force that Spencer and the Ginger Ninjas consistently choose to resist. Even playing in Portland, Oregon one night and Seattle the next—a piece of cake for the average airplane-supported rock band—is beyond reality for the Ginger Ninjas.

“That doesn’t work for us, so we say no to a lot of gigs,” Spencer said.

The band, formed in 2001, has traveled on fully pedal-powered bicycle tours six times now. Spencer, an avid cyclist almost all his life, first gave serious thought to a bike-powered tour in 2006, when he and several of his musicians rode bicycles from show to show during a tour of the Olympic Peninsula. A van and several cars carried their gear and roadies, but a year later the Ginger Ninjas went full throttle: They rigged trailers to their bikes and, each pulling between 100 and 200 pounds, rode from Lake Tahoe to Chiapas, Mexico. It was an 80-show tour, mostly played in Mexico, in which even the sound they made was pedal-powered; that is, they placed their bicycles onstage as stationary generators while fans took turns pedaling the bikes to power the custom-rigged sound system. Each year since, the four-piece band has toured, riding bicycles as far south as Guatemala in 2009 and traveling throughout Europe in 2010. To get there, they took a train to New York and a boat to Southampton, and then they moved for several months by bicycle and rail, playing 50 shows in England, Holland, Germany, the Czech Republic, Austria, Hungary, France and Spain. The group caught a boat home.

Of all the nations the group has visited, Mexico has treated the Ninjas most kindly.

“There’s certainly a warmth here,” Spencer said, speaking to me by phone from a town called Cuernavaca, south of Mexico City.

The culture is particularly welcoming to live music, too, he said: “Mexico has a great civic tradition and culture. You can just show up in a plaza, without planning or permits or permission, and start rocking to the people.”

Pedal power to the people: The Ginger Ninjas play for the residents of Morelia, Michoacan, as volunteer fans pedal stationary bikes to generate the sound system. Photo by Ulises Martinez.

While traveling, the Ginger Ninjas and their crew of supporters—including roadies, technicians, a masseuse and a cook—ride anywhere from 30 to 50 miles per day, spending months pedaling distances that most bands might cover by plane in three hours. The band brings camping gear and sleeps out roughly 50 percent of the time—almost never in campgrounds, almost always for free. Occasionally the band has encountered hostility. One evening as the sun grew low in the vineyard country near Santa Barbara, the band—growing anxious about where they would camp that night—hopped a barbed wire fence. Hauling their gear, they all managed to slip into the brush unseen—except for two stragglers, and as the pair lifted their bikes over the fence, a pickup truck arrived. The driver—the landowner—brandished a shotgun and ordered the group onward.

And in Guatemala the Ninjas were robbed at gunpoint.

“We lost five bikes,” Spencer told me.

“That must have been devastating,” I replied. “What did you do? I mean, five bikes?”

“Five bucks,” Spencer repeated.

Ah.

In addition to making music, Spencer wants people to understand that relying entirely on bicycles and public transportation (airplanes not included) is a viable means of living—even as a traveling band.

“I believe the bicycle is one of the best, if not the coolest, machines ever invented,” Spencer said. “Part of what we do is show people how capable bikes are, and part of my vision is that (riding a bicycle from California to Mexico) is something almost anyone can do. That’s part of what we want people to see.”

He meanwhile has little faith in cars and the culture we’ve built to sustain them. Car culture “is part of the broader picture of our twisted priorities and twisted development patterns,” he said. “It’s a cultural design that will fall in on itself in not too long. It’s doomed, and it’s dooming us.”

The band’s current tour is a short one—just 20 concerts or so—and by June, Spencer needs to be back in San Francisco to assist with running the upcoming Bicycle Music Festival, a day-long event on June 23 featuring a handful of pedal-powered groups, hundreds of fans and a bike for every person. The Ginger Ninjas spent several months riding to Mexico, and to come home the group is taking a bus—which runs on veggie oil.

The Ginger Ninjas aren’t alone in employing pedal power to move and make noise. SHAKE YOUR PEACE!, a San Francisco-based folk-rock band, is currently on a relatively short Bay Area tour, rolling on muscle-powered bicycle wheels. Another San Francisco musician, Paul Freedman, goes by the stage name of Fossil Fool: The Bike Rapper and, like his comrades in the community of pedal-powered musicians, he shirks cars and embraces bicycles and public transportation. Jan Repka is another of the community, though the native of the Czech Republic usually pedals and plays around Europe. And near Istanbul in 2009, I met two Polish men carrying guitars and a drum and playing Polish folk music as they cycled around the world. They said they would be rocking—and rolling—for years.

And even if rock and roll can’t change the world, some musicians believe just maybe the bicycle can.

Bikes on a Bus: The veggie-oil powered vehicle that carries the Ginger Ninjas, their assistants and their gear when it's time to go home. Photo courtesy of courtesy Xtracycle Inc.

King Juan Carlos, at right, stands with his guide from Rann Safaris as his dead Botswanan elephant lies propped against a tree.

The king of Spain visited Botswana recently, and on the famous savanna, teeming with animals familiar from the picture books we read as youths, King Juan Carlos shot and killed an elephant.

When I heard about the king’s outing, I decided to learn a little more about Botswana’s laws governing the protection—or lack thereof—of Africa’s most famous creatures. It turns out that many of them can be lawfully killed for those who buy the privilege. According to the website of Rann Safaris, the hunting outfit that guided King Carlos (who happens to be the honorary president of the Spanish branch of the World Wildlife Fund) it takes $6,000 to shoot a leopard. For $1,200, you can shoot a crocodile. For the pleasure of killing a hyena, you must turn over only $500. For a rhino, sorry, you’ll have to visit South Africa. But if you’re content to shoot an ostrich, stay on in Botswana, where the permits will run you $550. Short on cash? Then there’s always baboons, which go for a paltry $200 a pop. And to shoot the greatest land animal on the planet, the one that lives in matriarchal herds and mourns somberly when a family member dies, the one that’s been targeted by tusk-seeking machine gunners for decades and which you’d think should be a protected species—to shoot an African elephant, you’ll need to pay $19,000. It’s a princely sum, but nothing for a king.

The world is full of opportunities to shoot at its mightiest creatures, whether they’re good to eat or not, and here are just several animals that some of us would love to see and photograph—and that some people just want on the rec room wall.

Sharks. There’s nothing politically correct about shark fin soup, but an annual killing contest goes on in Martha’s Vineyard, where hundreds of sport fishermen gather every July to compete in the Annual Oak Bluffs Monster Shark Tournament. The event’s website states that 98 percent of sharks caught in the derby are released (a change from prior years), but there are prize incentives to bring the largest fish in to the dock, where crowds gather expectantly to see dead and bloody “monsters” hoisted at the weigh station. Last year, the biggest sharks landed and killed included 630-pound and 538-pound thresher sharks, a 495-pound porbeagle and a 278-pound mako. In 2005 a fisherman took a tiger shark weighing 1,191 pounds.

Big cats. The African lion has declined in numbers from possibly 100,000 in the early 1990s to a current population estimated to be as low as 16,000 individuals. Yet hunting of this vulnerable species is legal in parts of Africa. By some reports, in fact, the number of lions killed by licensed trophy hunters each year is on the rise. In California, cougar hunting was banned in 1990—so when a member of the state’s Fish and Game Commission got the urge to kill one this January, he went to Idaho, where hunting the cats is legal. The hunter, Dan Richards, posed gleefully with the cougar in his arms, sparking an explosion of anger among animal rights activists and trophy hunting critics. The controversy centered on the question of whether a man charged with, among other things, protecting cougars in one state should go and hunt them in another. Richards pointed out that he and his friends ate cougar the evening after the hunt—an excuse often voiced by trophy hunters. If you want to put food on the table, shoot a rabbit or a deer—but please, not a top predator.

Dan Richards, of the California Fish and Game Commission, went out of state to shoot this Idaho mountain lion.

Bears. They reportedly taste vile if they’ve been feeding on salmon or marine mammals, but that doesn’t stop Alaskan hunters from killing brown bears. In fact, these animals usually aren’t eaten—just skinned and beheaded, as Alaska state law requires. Alaskan black bears, too, are often killed only for wall mounts. The state, to its credit, prohibits one from using the meat of a game animal for purposes other than human consumption, yet exceptions are generously granted to bear hunters, who can at certain times of the year (like during salmon runs) use a black bear’s flesh as pet food, fertilizer or bait. (For wolves and wolverines, the meat does not need to be used at all.) Elsewhere in the world, bear hunters sometimes participate in controversial “canned hunts“—such as the one in 2006 in which King Juan Carlos, our mighty elephant hunter, shot a tame, drunk Russian brown bear named Mitrofan, who was fed honey and vodka prior to being prodded into an open field, where the crowned noble had an easy shot. Even imperiled polar bears are still legally hunted for trophies.

Baboons. I’m almost reluctant to discuss this one, so similar are the animals to us and so grisly the nature of this hunt, but the fact that men and women shoot baboons for kicks needs recognition. Landowners consider baboons pests in some places and welcome trophy hunters, who often use bows to kill the primates. The animals are known to react dramatically when hit, and—much like a human might—a baboon will scream and holler as it tussles with the shaft protruding from its torso. Even hardened hunters reportedly grow queasy at the sight of a skewered baboon panicked with fear. If you have the stomach for it, look through this Google gallery of “baboon hunting” images, showing proud hunters with their trophy kills, or for some less graphic insight into the minds of the people who would kill baboons for the joy of it, read through this baboon hunting discussion. Here is a sample from the conversation: “Seems kinda twisted but given the chance I’d shoot one. Cool trophy.” And: “Good Luck, Hope ya get one. My next time back I’d like to kill one as well.” Someone get me a bucket.

Wolves. While this top predator reproduces relatively rapidly and can be naturally resilient to some level of persecution, sport hunting the gray wolf still stinks. To justify the hunt, wolf hunters describe the animals as having negative effects on deer and elk herds. In the Rocky Mountain states, where wolves were reintroduced in the 1990s, they are already being hunted again. Some wolves are baited into shooting range, others pursued via snowmobile, and in a few places wolves are shot from airplanes—like on the Kenai Peninsula, where a government predator control program is drawing fire from wolf allies. Wolf pelts, not the flesh, are the goal of the game, though cast members of the film The Grey reportedly ate wolf stew in order to prepare for a scene in which the actors, including Liam Neeson, would pretend to dine on wolf meat. Most of the cast vomited during their meal, donated by a local wolf trapper, though Neeson returned for seconds.

More top targets of the trophy hunter’s hit list:

Billfish. Anglers may eat sailfish sashimi or braised marlin, but let’s keep things real: These fish die for their swords.

And crocodiles for their hides.

And walrus for their tusks.

And hippopotamus for … honestly, I really can’t imagine.

This just in: King Juan Carlos has publicly apologized for killing his elephant. “I am very sorry,” he told the press on April 18. “I made a mistake. It won’t happen again.” Sure, now that he’s got his tusks.

A farmer in the Congo harvests jackfruit, the largest tree fruit in the world. Photo courtesy of Flickr user Scamperdale.

In faraway lands, a walk through the village street market is a sure bet for zeroing in on the best of a region’s edible fruits. And in spite of museums, adrenaline sports, helicopter tours, golf courses and all the other offerings cut out and polished for commercial tourism, I’ve often found the local bazaars and farmers markets to be the most exciting of exotic cultural experiences. New sights, smells and tastes meet you at each visit, and as you near the equator, the diversity of available local edibles increases until you may discover new fruits at every market stall. Watch for mamey sapotes in Cuba, blackberry jam fruits in Brazil, peanut butter fruits in Columbia, the lucuma in Peru, Sycamore figs in Yemen, mangosteens in Thailand—and that’s just the beginning of the long, long list. Following are a few suggestions, continuing from last week, of fruits (and one fruit wine) worth a journey to see and taste.

Jackfruit, South Asia. When a falling apple bonked the brain of Isaac Newton, the theory of gravity is said to have been born. But falling jackfruit can kill. This huge fruit, kin to the dainty mulberry, can weigh more than 100 pounds. Should you find yourself in the tropics on a sweltering day, hang your hammock in the shade of a guava tree, by all means—but beware of the jackfruit. The trees are common as cows in much of South Asia, and the oblong, green fruits are covered with a thick reptilian hide that exudes a sticky latex-like sap. Knives and hands should be greased with cooking oil before butchering a jackfruit. Inside are the edible parts—yellow rubbery arils that taste of banana, pineapple and bubblegum. The fruit is loved by millions, though the wood of the tree has value, and in Sri Lanka more than 11,000 acres of jackfruit trees are grown for lumber. The species occurs throughout the tropics today. In Brazil, where it was introduced in the late 1700s, it has become a favorite fruit as well as a problematic invasive species. Asian communities elsewhere around the world import jackfruits, many of which are grown in Mexico.

White Sapote, Mexico. A green-skinned apple lookalike with creamy, white flesh as juicy as a peach and as gratifying as a banana, the white sapote may be one of the most outstanding tree fruits in the New World. Though native to Mexico and Central America, it can be grown in temperate regions—as far north, even, as the foggy San Francisco Bay Area. I first met this fruit while cycling through Malibu, California, when I discovered hundreds of apple-sized orbs spilling from a pair of trees outside a driveway along Highway 1. I picked one up, found the fruit as soft and pliable as an avocado, and couldn’t resist taking a bite. I was stunned by the flavor and equally surprised that I had never seen this creature before, and I crawled into the culvert to salvage the fallen beauties. I packed about 20 pounds of bruised and oozing white sapotes into my saddlebags and, with a heavy heart, left perhaps 100 pounds more to spoil. That was in October 2004, and I suppose that the trees are still there. (If you go, harvest only the fallen fruit.) Just months later, I was walking through the desert mountains north of Cabo San Lucas on a dirt road that crosses the Baja Peninsula from El Pescadero on the Pacific coast eastward before the road connects with the main highway. Just before that intersection, I met a local ranch family who told me that in a nearby canyon was a semi-wild white sapote orchard. They spoke reverently of the trees and their fruit—but said I had just missed the season.

Fig, Greece and Turkey. A perfectly ripened fresh fig is soft and sweet as jam, making this Old World native essentially unable to withstand the rigors of long-distance travel or long-term storage. In effect, the fig is one of the very last fruits that is mostly unavailable outside the season and place where it is grown. Although Spanish missionaries tenderly packed fig cuttings with their guns and cannons and planted the lucrative food source throughout the New World, and although British explorers introduced the fig to the Pacific Islands and Australia, nowhere in the world do figs occur in such abundance as along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. Portugal to Israel, Egypt to Morocco, and throughout the region’s islands, fig trees grow like weeds. Ravenous goats, worthless rock soils and never-ending drought, all in combination, cannot stop the miraculous fig, and the trees take over abandoned villages. They bust apart the cobblestones of bridges and castles, and they drop their fruits upon the world below. Esteemed cultivars grow in gardens and dangle over village fences. Wild seedlings and forgotten heirlooms grow in vacant lots and abandoned groves. In high season—August to October—sidewalks vanish as falling fruit accumulates like jam on the ground. Picking sacks full of figs is a sure bet in nearly every village below 3,000 feet. Greece and coastal Turkey are ground zero, but hundreds of varieties and millions of trees grow in Spain, Croatia, Italy, Portugal, France and Georgia—nearly anywhere in the region. Want to skip the high season and still get your fig kick? Then go to the island of Cyprus, where several local varieties ripen as late as December. Can’t travel until February? April? June? On parts of the Big Island of Hawaii, fig trees produce fruit year round.

Throughout the Mediterranean and Middle East, village sidewalks disappear under splattered fruit during the height of fig season. This scene was photographed by the author in southern Turkey in late September 2010.

Pawpaw, Appalachia. This is one fruit you may not find in your average farmers market. It’s been nicknamed “poor man’s banana” and described as “America’s forgotten fruit”—but why and how did we ever forget the pawpaw? It’s got the fetching qualities (as well as the DNA) of a tropical fruit, but this cold-tolerant species is as American as the Great Lakes, the swamps of Florida and the backwoods of the Appalachians. Abundant in places, it even occurs naturally in southern Ontario. Lewis and Clark encountered this relative of the cherimoya and were pleased by its creamy, custard-like flesh, and many people in the Eastern states are familiar with the pawpaw fruit, which may weigh five pounds and is the largest native edible fruit in America. On the shores of the Potomac River, pawpaw trees grow wild. Indeed, foraging may be the only way to taste this oddity. For whatever reason, pawpaws are scarcely cultivated and even more rarely sold in markets. So pack a machete and a fruit bowl and get thee to Kentucky. Take note: Kiwis call papayas pawpaws. That is, the “pawpaws” you see in New Zealand supermarkets are simply mislabeled papayas.

Cashew wine, Belize. I first described this specialty product of Belize two weeks ago. Cashew wine is not currently imported into or sold in the United States (or if it is, I haven’t heard about it) and short of having a friend pack a few bottles home on their next trek to Central America there may be no way other way than visiting Belize to have a taste (well, you can order it online, but that’s no fun). But it so happens that I was lucky enough to sample a bottle kindly sent to me last week by Travellers Liquors, the Belize-based maker of Mr. P’s Genuine Cashew Wine. Made from the fleshy cashew apple, Mr. P’s is tawny colored, like whiskey, on the sweet side and very aromatic. It smells and tastes like a lively stew of sour pineapple, molasses and maple syrup, with a strange and elusive hint of WD40—an exciting change of pace from the fermented juice of the grape. And here’s a morsel of jungle lore: Belizeans told me in 2002, as I traveled there for a month, that cashew wine will make a person drunk twice—once while drinking it, and again the next day if you should fall asleep in the sun.

I’ve surely missed a thousand other good fruits. More suggestions,  anyone?

Pitcairn Island provided the mutineers of the Bounty a haven from the world in the 18th century. Today, it offers much the same—along with a general store, a cafe and 50 permanent residents. Photo courtesy of Flickr user wileypics.

Planning a vacation for next year? Consider these remote island getaways. They could really use a visit.

1) Pitcairn Island. The history of this island is one of the most compelling stories in nonfiction, recounted in the book trilogy of Mutiny on the Bounty, Men Against the Sea and Pitcairn’s Island. The two-square-mile subtropical crag was unoccupied until a boatload of mutinous Englishmen showed up in 1790, sank their ship off the island’s coast and piled ashore, along with a number of ladyfriends picked up in Fiji and other islands along the way. The mutineers had sent Lieutenant William Bligh and 18 loyal sailors adrift in a flimsy lifeboat after taking control of Bligh’s ship, HMS Bounty. They brought to life a true Lord-of-the-Flies scenario to the island as they learned to survive, descended into drunken infighting and began killing each other. By 1800 the only sailor left was John Adams, whose life assumed a peaceful pace with his Polynesian companions. Today, Pitcairn Island is populated by 50 people, has administrative headquarters in New Zealand, markets honey, stamps and coins as its chief products, has a handful of hostels, a general store and a café, and frankly, it could use some company.

2) Nunivak Island. I probably don’t need to warn anyone to stay away from this desolate island patch of Alaskan tundra until May or June. It’s then that the sun comes out and stays out over Nunivak Island, located in the Bering Sea at 60 degrees latitude north. About 200 people, almost all residents of the Cup’ik Eskimo town of Mekoryuk, live here, hunting seals and fishing for a living. Musk ox and reindeer also occupy the island, introduced after the native caribou were exterminated, and the streams teem with salmon. Don’t expect much in the way of accommodations here, and bring a waterproof tent if you go. Flights come regularly from Bethel, Alaska. The virtues of this island are its isolation, its wilderness, its bounties of wild fish, blueberries and game and, in the absence of tourist infrastructure, the prospects for true adventures and interactions with local people and culture.

3) Isla Angel de la Guarda. If there is an island in the ocean but no one there to enjoy it, does it really exist? Sure. Consider Isla Angel de la Guarda, in the Mexico’s Sea of Cortez. At any given time, almost nobody is there—but satellite photos show that the island itself always remains. This 40-by-10-mile wilderness, with the stoic silence of the desert, is surrounded by sapphire-blue water. Without hotels, villages or tourist attractions of any sort where one might spend money, it doesn’t really need visitors—and that’s the best reason to go. If you should find yourself there somehow (you’ll have to hitchhike out via fishing boat), stand on the beach at night and gaze at the night skies bejeweled with stars, and by day soak in the clear ocean waters. Bring plenty of water (or a desalinator), and take along a fishing rod. Leave only footprints.

4) Tokelau. Poverty, idleness, the despondency of being marooned—these aspects of life on Tokelau are nothing compared to what’s coming for this triangle of islands. Lying smack on a straight line between Auckland and Honolulu, the islands of Atafu, Nukunonu and Fakaofo, made of sand and crumbled coral, stand no more than two meters above sea level. With sea level rising already, the Tokelauan archipelago may not see another century of life above water. For the time being, this territory of New Zealand is home to 1500 people and, reportedly, three cars. (I have not learned where people go in them.) There is no landing strip, and the fastest way to Tokelau is a two-day boat ride from Samoa. Representatives of Tokelau recently made a stir in Durban, at the November-December climate change summit, where they announced an ambitious plan to switch entirely to renewable energy within a year. Their idea is to challenge the rest of us to take similar action. If you go to Tokelau, expect to eat breadfruit, tuna, taro root and kaleva, a local alcohol made from coconut.

The rugged shores and soaring peak of Tristan da Cunha, home to the world's most isolated community.

5) Frank Sinatra preferred New York City. I prefer places like Tristan da Cunha, famed as the most remote inhabited island group in the world. This Atlantic cluster of volcanoes lies 1,750 miles from the nearest port, Cape Town, South Africa. The six islands take up 52 square miles of the Earth’s surface and provide a home to just under 300 people. Tristan da Cunha Island itself sports a dramatic summit that rises 6,762 feet from the sea—a perfect conical peak with a heck of a hike to the top. In other words, sea level won’t swamp this island group and you’ve got all the time in the world to go see it—but how does one get there? Like Tokelau, “Tristan” has no airport, and the only way here is by boat, whether fishing vessel, freighter or private sailing yacht. Camping, meanwhile, is reportedly not illegal but is considered unusual. The other islands in the group are uninhabited, though, and presumably you can sleep any place you want. One of these islands is actually called Inaccessible Island—which sounds to me like a challenge. Note: Tristan is not tropical. It lies at almost 40 degrees south latitude. Better bring a coat.

6) Lemnos. This Greek Aegean island is a personal favorite of mine—a lesser-known expanse of low hills and untrammeled beaches that I visited in 2006 and which I remember most for its abandoned villages, desolate plains, beehives everywhere and a mind-blowing abundance of fig and mulberry trees. Homer praised Lemnos in the Iliad for its wine, and today its scrubby 186 square miles still produce a variety of acclaimed wines. Myrina is the main western port, served by multiple ferry lines and with all the hotels and services a tourist might want. But Lemnos’s east side, relatively deserted, is where the magic happens. Camp where you like. Savor the stars at night. Eat figs by day. Revel in the rare solitude. While you’re in the area, Samothraki to the north is a beautiful mile-high volcanic island populated by camps of Central European hippies known for their trance parties and well worth a visit, while Chios, just a ferry ride to the south, is another mountainous beauty of the Aegean.

The author surveys the blue waters and desolate coastal bluffs of Lemnos.

7) Caroline Atoll. Want a real party this New Year’s Eve? Then go to New York City. But at the eastern edge of the Kiribati island group you’ll find the Caroline Atoll, whose proximity to the international dateline makes it among the first places in the world to see each new day on Earth. Go here in a week and enjoy the distinguishing thrill of being the first person to enter 2012. In fact, Caroline Atoll’s name unofficially became “Millennium Island” prior to the “Y2K” New Year’s celebration. But in the realm of more relevant and real tourist attractions, visitors here will find virtually no people, as the Caroline Atoll is uninhabited. Sleep where you will—and bring a mask and snorkel, for the coral reefs here are considered among the most spectacular in the world. Watch for giant clams underwater, grab a lobster for dinner and good luck keeping the coconut crabs out of your tent at night.

Last Note: If you plan to be marooned somewhere for some time, that’s great. I’m glad for you. I wish I was going, too. Just be sure to bring along a copy of David Quammen’s The Song of the Dodo: Island Biogeography in an Age of Extinctions, in which the author-naturalist discusses, through fascinating examples and cases studies, just why the creatures that inhabit islands—from the largest lizard on Earth to flightless birds that have no fear of predators to grotesquely oversized tortoises—can be, well, such freaks.