Saint Helena

Jamestown — the capital of Saint Helena (a British Overseas Territory of 122km² in the South Atlantic, 2,000km from the nearest continent, population 4,500 — one of the most isolated inhabited islands on earth, famous primarily as the place of Napoleon Bonaparte’s final exile) — a complete Georgian colonial town preserved in a steep valley, with the Ladder Hill Fort, Jacob’s Ladder (699 steps cut into the cliff) and the Castle and Government House.

💡 Saint Helena was the place of Napoleon Bonaparte’s final exile (1815–1821 — after his defeat at Waterloo, the British government chose Saint Helena specifically for its extreme isolation as the most secure prison in the world — no island is further from any continent — where he died on 5 May 1821 at age 51 and was buried at Longwood until his remains were repatriated to Les Invalides in Paris in 1840). Saint Helena has been French sovereign territory during the transportation of his remains and is the most historically significant British island in the Atlantic outside Britain itself.

Longwood House (Napoleon’s residence during his 6-year exile — the house where he lived, complained about the damp and the British governor, wrote his memoirs and died — maintained by the French government as French sovereign territory (the only French soil outside France itself), meticulously restored to its 1821 appearance with period furniture and Napoleon’s personal effects) and Sane Valley (where Napoleon was originally buried before repatriation to Paris).

💡 Longwood House and its garden (officially French sovereign territory since 1858, maintained and managed by the French government through the French Consul on Saint Helena — the only example of French extra-territorial sovereignty in the British Atlantic — is preserved exactly as it appeared during Napoleon’s residence. The house contains his original furniture, personal effects including his hat and coat, and the camp bed on which he died.

Whale shark snorkelling (November to January — Saint Helena has the highest density of whale sharks accessible from shore in the Atlantic, with 100–200 individuals congregating in the waters off the island each season, accessible by boat from Jamestown in 30 minutes — these are juvenile males (5–8m), the most approachable in the world, habituated to snorkellers and swimming slowly in the warm surface water — the finest Atlantic whale shark encounter by a wide margin).

💡 Saint Helena’s whale shark population (100–200 individuals November–January — the highest density of whale sharks in the Atlantic, discovered only in 2010 by visiting divers and not scientifically described until 2015) aggregates around the island in the South Atlantic summer, apparently feeding on tuna egg masses. The individuals are all juvenile males of 5–8m; no adults or females have been recorded at Saint Helena, suggesting it is a specific juvenile feeding ground.

Diana’s Peak (823m — the highest point in Saint Helena, in the National Park covering the island’s interior cloud forest — a hike through the most remarkable oceanic island flora in the Atlantic: tree ferns, black cabbage trees, bastard gumwood and the indigenous Saint Helena wirebird (Charadrius sanctaehelenae — the island’s national bird, critically endangered with fewer than 500 individuals) in the foggy moorland of the summit plateau) and the Millennium Forest restoration project.

💡 The Saint Helena wirebird (Charadrius sanctaehelenae — a small plover found only on Saint Helena, descended from a colonial-era introduction of a bird that evolved in total isolation for millions of years into a distinct species) was reduced to approximately 200 individuals in the late 1990s by cat and rat predation. An intensive predator control programme (trapping cats and rats in the wirebird habitat) has recovered the population to approximately 500 individuals, still one of the rarest birds in the Atlantic.

The Boer War prisoner of war camp sites (1900–1902 — Saint Helena held 5,000 Boer prisoners from South Africa during the Anglo-Boer War, the second time the island was used as a strategic prison after Napoleon — the Deadwood Plain camp site with the Boer POW cemetery is the largest foreign military cemetery in the South Atlantic) and the Castle (the 17th-century British military complex in Jamestown with the Museum of Saint Helena).

💡 Saint Helena was used as a British prison island three times: the East India Company imprisoned 3,000+ enslaved Africans rescued from slave ships there (1840–1872); Napoleon (1815–1821); and 5,000 Boer War prisoners (1900–1902). Each episode left a significant physical and genealogical legacy — the liberated enslaved Africans’s descendants form a large part of the current population.

Sandy Bay (a beach of black volcanic sand on the south coast — the most dramatic coastal scenery in Saint Helena, with 200m vertical cliffs of ancient volcanic rock, the pounding South Atlantic swell and the nesting colonies of masked boobies and Saint Helena plovers) and the Harpers Valley (the deepest valley on the island, with the most intact examples of original Saint Helena gumwood forest — the national tree, once covering the island before the East India Company goats stripped it in the 17th century).

💡 The East India Company goats (introduced to Saint Helena in the 1500s as a food source for passing ships — by 1600 the entire island was covered by thousands of feral goats that stripped every native plant on the lower slopes, destroying the original gumwood and ebony forest in under 100 years — represent the first recorded case of invasive species destruction of an oceanic island ecosystem. The current restoration project has planted 30,000+ native trees in the last decade.

Jonathan (Aldabra giant tortoise, estimated born c. 1832 — approximately 190+ years old, the oldest known living land animal on earth, resident at Government House garden since 1882 — still active, grazing on the lawn, participating in guided tours and acknowledged as one of the most remarkable living beings on the planet) and the restored Jamestown market and craft shops before flying from Saint Helena (HLE).

💡 Jonathan the tortoise (officially documented as the oldest known living land animal — Guinness World Record holder — estimated born approximately 1832 based on his arrival at Saint Helena as a mature adult in 1882. He was alive during the reign of Queen Victoria, the US Civil War, both World Wars and every subsequent world event. He is blind in one eye, has lost his sense of smell but eats, moves and socialises normally on the Government House grounds.