I saw Socotra featured on a documentary roughly 15 years ago and it has been on the top of my travel bucket list ever since. Logistics have been unreliable and questionably dangerous for years as the island is technically part of Yemen who has been in a civil war since 2008.

The UAE started weekly humanitarian flights allowing tourists to travel from Abu Dhabi and completely avoid Yemen mainland. There is still no tourism infrastructure, so it is an off the grid experience. Accommodation is in tents and the bathroom on some days is just digging a hole in the ground.

In the end this trip ended up being one of the best weeks of my life. Hopefully for the sake of the local economy tourism can become more reliable and provide a bigger income for the island, as there are still only about 1,000 tourists per year coming. I am happy I went when I did as I got a very raw and authentic experience of the island.

All photos are taken with an iPhone 13 Pro