Country or Not, Pitcairn Offers Opportunity for Shopping Frenzy

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Day 22, 2025 Grand World Voyage

Saturday, Jan. 25, 2025; Pitcairn Island.

I’ve been to 94 countries, according to my count. I track them on the app Been, which creates a neat map. Obviously, a stop in Canada, Russia, China or even Greenland makes the map more impressive. Tiny island countries, not so much.

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Recently someone asked me how many countries I had visited and how many were on cruises. That got me to thinking and doing a little research about how people who keep such lists decide which countries to count. Do they count places that aren’t exactly countries? The Travelers’ Century Club identifies 330 countries and territories, admitting many are included because they are remote from the parent country. United Nations membership comprises 193 sovereign states.

My criteria aren’t exactly strict. I have included Hungary, even though I only changed planes there, stepping outside the terminal. It is one of three countries I didn’t visit by cruise ship (the others are Moldova and St. Vincent and Grenadines, which I reached on a sailboat).

Today’s visit to Pitcairn Island raises another question. Does it count, even though I never set foot on the island? And is it a country?

Pitcairn Island is about as remote as Easter Island, but unlike Easter Island, you cannot fly there. Supply boats arrive every few weeks, and occasionally cruise ships like the Zuiderdam call. The pier structure is too small for all but small zodiac inflatable boats from small expedition ships. So the islanders come to us.

Just like on my previous visit five years, ago, some of the approximately 40 residents come to the ship on a long boat, bringing boxes of wares to sell in a marketplace set up on the Lido Deck. They left with supplies, perhaps the most cherished of which was large tubs of ice cream.

The residents offer t-shirts, wood carvings, stamps, postcards, magnets and some of the purest honey on earth. I seem to recall paying $5 for a small jar in 2020 – today the price is $20. I also bought a stamp commemorating the arrival of radio communications service. With a satellite image on the stamp, it will fit in with my space-focused stamp collection.

Also for sale are replicas of the HMS Bounty, the ship that has made Pitcairn Island famous. In 1789 Fletcher Christian led a mutiny, casting off Capt. William Bligh in a lifeboat. Christian’s group finally made it to Pitcairn Island, and many of the residents today are his descendants.

The current mayor is the exception – a British bloke who came here with his American wife more than 20 years ago. Mayor Simon filled the World Stage for a talk about the island and a Q&A session, and exchanged gifts with Capt. Friso. This is the Zuiderdam’s first call on Pitcairn.

I learned that the island is heavily focused on environmental concerns. The ocean surrounding it is a protected marine territory with fishing limited to serving the local food needs. Most of the island’s energy is supplied by solar power now, although a diesel generator can provide backup.

It is one of the few dark sky sanctuaries in the world and thus attracts stargazers, as well as occasional tourists who want to experience isolated island life.

At the moment there are no children on the island; a couple of teenagers have gone to New Zealand for school. Pitcairn uses New Zealand currency, as that is the origin of the supply ship, but politically it, along with three uninhabited nearby islands, is the only British Overseas Territory in the Pacific Ocean.

So back to my original quandary – do I count Pitcairn Island as a “country visited?” It’s not a country and I haven’t set foot on the island, but I’ve decided that it counts. That’s the advantage of making my own rules for my own list.

In other news, today Holland America’s Volendam set off from Fort Lauderdale on the other grand voyage, known as the Pole-to-Pole. Among its passengers are my sisters, Eloise and Elaine, who usually sail with me on the world cruise. We couldn’t agree on which to take (and earlier this year Holland America wrote a blog post about that). Quite a few other world cruise regulars also are on the Volendam, and we look forward to a party when the two ships meet up in Barcelona in April.