Tom Neale spent a total of fourteen years alone on a little island in the Suwarrow Atoll in the South Pacific, where he found peace and happiness in solitude. We have a look at this extraordinary life.
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To pack up and go, to leave everything behind and move alone to a tropical paradise, with no other worries than having to pick up a coconut or two for one’s next meal… This is a dream that many of us have had from time to time. One person did it.
Meet Tom Neale, sole inhabitant of the Suwarrow Atoll in the South Pacific for a total of fourteen years.
Life before Suwarrow
Thomas Francis Neale was born in New Zealand, but as soon as he found an opportunity with the Royal New Zealand Navy, he left to explore the Pacific islands. He lived in many different places around the Pacific, doing various jobs, and for a few years he was a shopkeeper in Tahiti. It was only in 1945, when he was 43 years old, that he first visited Suwarrow briefly with a supply ship — and immediately he knew that this was the place he wanted to call his home. But at this time, with the Second World War going on all around, there was no way how he could relocate to the island. On the island there was a military outpost, where a handful of soldiers were keeping watch in a small hut. It was only much later, after the end of the war, in 1952, that Tom Neale finally managed to get a lift to the island.
He was never a rich man. He didn’t have much interest in material goods and in a more stable career path, and he was happy to make do with occasional jobs that left him enough free time to dream of a life outside of civilisation. In fact, his book about his adventure begins with the words of a true Epicurean:
So he was never in a position to have his own boat with which he could reach the island, or the ability to buy crates full of supplies for his adventure. But he was a hard-working man who was able to make his own way and who could handle the challenges of a life in nature:
He might have lived this life forever, had there not been the occasional friends who …
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