Nukulaelae is a small coral atoll in the southern part of Tuvalu, about 130 kilometres south of the capital Funafuti. The atoll consists of a ring of islets around a shallow lagoon, with a total land area of barely a third of a square kilometre. A few hundred people live here, mostly on the main islet of Fangaua.
Getting to Nukulaelae requires taking one of the infrequent inter-island cargo ships from Funafuti — there is no airstrip. Visitors are rare, and that is part of the appeal for anyone drawn to genuinely remote Pacific islands.