If you are dreaming of a Pacific paradise in a completely unspoiled yesteryear atmosphere, then Pukapuka, the most isolated in the Cook Islands group is the one to visit.
It is an astonishingly beautiful island, one which American writer Robert Dean Frisbee said: "'It comprises three small islets threaded on a reef six or seven miles in circumference, which encloses a lagoon so beautifully clear that one can see the strange forests of coral to a depth of ten fathoms.
The islets are little more than banks of sand and bleached coral where coconut palms and pandanus and puka trees break momentarily the steady sweep of the trade wind.' Having said that, it also the most difficult one to get to, owing to the irregular airflights because of weather conditions. Pukapuka is a true atoll of three islets and a sandbank - the whole shaped like a three-bladed fan.
It lies 715 miles (1150 km) north-west of Rarotonga. The small population lives and works as a true commune, often the case with tiny Pacific island communities.
It is also an eco-tourist and geological fan's dream - excavations have shown that the island was home to humans around 400 AD. An extraordinary archaeological find from 300 BC are dogs' bones big enough to suggest one specimen was similar in size to the ancient dingo of Australia.
The skull was larger than the dog skulls excavated from Moorea in the Society Islands.
According to Japanese archaeologists there are no archaeological specimens of such large dogs from south-east Asia.
The Pukapukans are famous for their ocean-going navigation skills and the ability to sail across the at times fickle waters of the Pacific. Pukapuka has the distinction of being the first of the Cook Islands to be sighted by Europeans.
The Spanish explorer Alvaro de Mendana saw it on August 20 1595 and named it San Bernardo Pukapuka was proclaimed a British protectorate in 1892 and was included in the Cook Islands boundaries under the control of New Zealand in 1901.
Air Rarotongaflies to Pukapuka from Rarotonga irregularly and would-be visitors should check with Air Rarotonga.