Little was known about the islands of San Seriffe until The Guardian newspaper published a seven page special report about them back in 1977. The supplement was published on the 10th anniversary of independence which the islands gained on April 1, 1967.

Typical for that newspaper (affectionately known as "The Grauniad" there were a number of typographical errors calling the islands by their proper name but also various mis-spellings such as San Seriffe and even San Serriffee.

There are two main islands in San Serriffe, namely Upper Caisse and the southern and smaller island of Lower Caisse. These islands are to be found in the Indian ocean though it is impossible to locate them precisely due to very strange wind and tidal conditions that continually erode the west coast, depositing the debris on the east and thus, curiously, causing the islands to migrate eastwards at the rate of 1.4km/year. If these conditions persist, the islands will eventually collide with Sri Lanka. Though it's going to take a long time before that occurs.

As part of the special report Kodak ran a competition for best amateur pictures of travel there, gaining quite a number of entries describing memorable holidays. Another benefit was the upswing in work for airlines and travel agents with people demanding to book vacations there! If you visit, or have visited, please let's say more about this delightful location.

I can't really do justice to the islands as I've never visited, but you can find reports in wikipedia and also in a much longer article, where you can even find links to the original supplement here.

In this modern age of the internet and the world wide web, it's hard to imagine that the islands could go unnoticed for so long, but back in 1977, when there were far fewer accessible sources of information, little gems like the islands of San Serriffe were able to go unnoticed. Without the special report in 1977, I suspect no one would know of San Serriffe.

Log in or register to write something here or to contact authors.