Bored of the usual holiday at the usual resort in front of the usual beach with all the usual comforts? Tired of the cocktail with its umbrella, splashing around in a paddle boat, and roasting in the sun under a beach umbrella? Can’t bear the entertainer who makes you go on stage and sing karaoke? Then you need to try something completely new for your next holiday! Like being shipwrecked on a deserted island, fighting over coconuts with the monkeys and discovering whether or not it is possible to light a fire by rubbing two sticks together, or else you won’t survive the frigid night.

No, no. This isn’t a fantasy. There really is a tour operator who offers their clients – their heroes – as they call them, “Robinson Crusoe inspired holidays”. And one must really be a hero to let themselves be “abandoned” on a tiny Adaman island, or an atoll in the Indonesian archipelago just to see if they can survive a week alone.

The agency in question is called Docastaway, which translates into “be a castaway”, based in Singapore, it was founded by a 43-year-old Spanish traveller named Álvaro Cerezo who has spent his life looking for uninhabited islands. Uninhabited…for real! Even a plane flying over the island, or a boat on the horizon, we enough to erase it from his list of solitary islands, as he mentioned during an interview with travel magazine, Afar.

In 2010 Cerezo opened his agency which was, belie it or not, an immediate success with clients made up of businessmen, bankers, famous entrepreneurs and CEOs of big companies. People who are clearly so happy with their workspace that they can’t wait to go stay on a deserted island. It isn’t even that expensive: around 300 dollars a night. Then of course there are travel expenses to reach the holiday to keep in mind, but there is no need to explain further because, once you get there you won’t spend another penny.

How does the holiday work? The hero pays a deposit to the agency and signs a waiver. They then put themselves in the hands of Docastaway who organises the entire trip. They are not given the location of their island, not even in which ocean it is located. The fun part, according to Cerezo, is the surprise. After all, when you are shipwrecked for real, you don’t know where you’ll end up!

The client – always on their own, as the agency doesn’t accept pairs – must follow the tour operator’s instruction which are communicated step by step, the last of which is to get onto a boat that will deposit them on a small, completely uninhabited island. Here they disembark, with the promise they will be collected at the end of the holiday. The client can choose various options. Like bringing a few bottles of water with them, emergency food rations and some simple tools. Or if they disembark just with the clothes on their backs.

And an internet connection? Well, not even Docastaway has been able to convince their Heroes to live without it. Thanks to a satellite, the agency allows them to connect a few minutes a day, after they have signed a non-disclosure agreement to not share pictures or descriptions of the experience. This is mostly a matter of safety and gives the client a chance to be retrieved quickly if they just can’t make it. Something that, reassures Cerezo, has never happened.

The “castaway holiday” formula inaugurated by Docastaway, has been picked up on over the last decade by other tourist agencies, British and American in particular, some who, in addition to the clothes-on-your-back experience, also offer a “soft” option, where the client can find a pan and a small den. A luxury for our aspiring Robinson Crusoes.

The cover image is taken from the Docastaway website.