Pulau Run is in the Banda Islands in Indonesia.

A view of Pulau Run (2007)

Understand

Run is a small island ('pulau' being Indonesian for 'island') with an outsized historical importance. It was a centre of the nutmeg and mace trade, as one of the 'Spice Islands', coveted by European traders and rulers. The British were the first Europeans to occupy the island, in the 17th century, but they were soon expelled by the Dutch, and gave up all claims to the island in exchange for Dutch recognition of British rule over the former New Netherlands (which now comprises much of the U.S. state of New York). The British eventually were able to transplant nutmeg trees in other colonies they controlled in the early 19th century, finally breaking the longtime Dutch monopoly on the nutmeg trade. Pulau Run is quiet now, but the people there continue to grow nutmeg trees as their forefathers did.

Get in

Run (left) and Nailaka (right, barely visible) islands

All arrivals have to be by boat.