The editor of the ISISA blog, Laurie Brinklow, contacted me with an invitation: ‘One idea I thought of is for you to write something about your “collection” of islands – where you're at in the list, how it all started, the oddest thing you've seen... that kind of thing.’ How could I refuse?

Collection? This refers to my list of islands visited. I am a true obsessive; of course I keep a list. And I boast of it. When I wrote my Geography of Islands, published back in 2001, I recorded proudly that I had been to 320 islands. Small beer; for when Godfrey Baldacchino had me write for his Archipelago Tourism book published in 2015, as boasted in the title of my chapter I had made then a 767-island odyssey. Small beer, for I have now, as of 4 January 2016, visited 855 islands. I write this piece on the island of Kyushu, Japan, where I am Visiting Professor at the Kagoshima University Research Center for the Pacific Islands. I...

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