The islands of Micronesia are small, hence the name. The biggest of these small islands is Guam, a US territory. I lived for close to 2 years in the mid-’80s on this small island far from the US mainland. Much, much further than Hawaii is. Seems peculiar that a city boy spent 2 years on a remote tropical island, unless you know I was in the Navy at the time. I enjoyed living on Guam. It never got cold. The hospitality of the locals was tremendous. The food was quite good and heavily influenced by Filipino food. Lots of Japanese tourists came there for a tropical vacation and stayed at high-rise hotels on the beach.
I often felt that Guam got a bum rap because of its very unglamorous name. Names like Fiji and Tahiti sound much more exotic. Perhaps using Guam’s alternate name, Guahan, would have been a good start. Guahani or Guahanini, maybe even better.
I could count the number of traffic lights on the island with two hands. The speed limit was 35 mph. The sun set at 6:30 every evening. Coming back to the States was a bit of an adjustment.
I knew Guam as being four days south of Japan by ship and four days east of the Philippines. Although I wanted to, I never got to any other Micronesian islands, or any Polynesian or Melanesian islands for that matter (other than Hawaii, on the way to Guam from California.) I heard that Bali was a hotspot. I wasn’t quite sure at the time that Bali was in Indonesia. But I did my best to explore around Guam. I will post some of my pictures from Guam when I dig them up.
If you ever make it to Guam, don’t miss War in the Pacific National Historical Park. This National Park Service site includes numerous relics of WWII.