{"country":{"title":"Tuvalu","name":"Tuvalu","slug":"tuvalu","flag":"🇹🇻","subtitle":"","summary":"","prose":["We spent three nights in Tuvalu and passed the time walking around both sides of the island, peeking into local convenience shops, and enjoying the beautiful water and sunshine. The highlight of each day was undoubtedly walking to the massive airstrip every evening to watch the locals gather for community time together. Once the sun went down, the climate became far more pleasant, and it was amazing to see everyone enjoying the open space in different ways. We were constantly met with smiles, laughs, waves, and nods. Tuvaluans seem to genuinely enjoy life at a slower pace.","On our final day, we rented a scooter and zipped to the far side of the island. It was fun cruising around, and eventually we reached the more industrial side of Tuvalu: a tiny port—if you can even call it that—the landfill area, and some of the island’s most isolated homes and communities."],"pop":"11k","lang":"Tuvaluan, English","adv":1,"vis":0.003,"rar":99,"daysOnGround":3,"mapsUrl":"https://maps.app.goo.gl/cQj9SBEHDLmaDQyN7","countedDate":"15 Aug 2025","countryNo":126,"firstArrival":{"date":"2025-08-14","airport":"FUN","from":"SUV","carrier":"FJI","num":"281","duration":"2h 31m"},"hero":"1755380575703-TCVJUFA6QS9T48L61UD6/maxandhailey_travel_tuvalu+-+23.jpeg","art":"tuvalu"},"ui":{"words":{},"copy":{"recap":"Three days on Funafuti, an atoll small enough to walk end to end — so we did, both directions, plus a half-marathon on the airstrip and a scooter ride out to the tiny port on the far side. The highlight came every evening, when we walked back to that airstrip to watch the whole island gather on it after sundown. Everyone we passed had a smile, a wave, or a nod for us. Tuvaluans seem to genuinely enjoy life at a slower pace."},"facts":[{"idx":".tv","h":"The country that owns television","p":"Tuvalu's internet domain happens to spell 'television' — and licensing .tv to the world's streamers brings in roughly a tenth of the government's entire revenue.","chip":null},{"idx":"~3,000 a year","h":"Earth's least-visited country","p":"Fewer tourists reach Tuvalu in a year than the Eiffel Tower welcomes in an afternoon — UN figures regularly rank it the least-visited country on the planet.","chip":"{stats.nights} nights in the diary"},{"idx":"Fire siren","h":"The runway doubles as the town square","p":"Between the week's few flights, Funafuti's airstrip becomes Tuvalu's playground — rugby, volleyball, evening strolls — until the fire siren sounds and everyone clears off for a landing.","chip":null},{"idx":"Eight standing together","h":"The name counts the islands","p":"Tuvalu means 'eight standing together' in Tuvaluan — one for each island that was historically inhabited. The ninth, tiny Niulakita, joined later and politely isn't counted.","chip":null},{"idx":"1896–98","h":"The atoll that tested Darwin","p":"The Royal Society drilled 340 metres into Funafuti atoll in the 1890s expressly to test Darwin's theory of how coral atolls form — the borehole backed him up, and its site is still there to find.","chip":null},{"idx":"4.6 m","h":"A country below the treetops","p":"Tuvalu's highest natural point stands about 4.6 metres above the sea — the whole nation sits lower than a coconut palm is tall, on ribbons of land sometimes just a few dozen metres 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