Other than Wi-Fi, there's not much on Atiu that reminds me of 2019. When I drive all the way round its dirt coast road - dodging coconuts and coconut crab holes, and never once managing to shift out of second gear - I don't pass another vehicle. The owner of the villas I'm staying at (they're the only villas on Atiu) tells me if I see another scooter parked by a beach, to move on to the next (there's 26 of them): ''No one likes a crowd on Atiu,'' he says. But I never do.

This kind of holiday isolation is generally only found by the hardiest backpackers in far-flung destinations; places requiring days of intricate travel scheduling to get to. But not Atiu; it's 45 minutes flying time from Rarotonga, the capital of the Cook Islands. And though Atiu's the third most visited island of the Cooks, you'll still be one of only 500 tourists each year who visits.

Rarotonga's hardly a metropolis, mind you - this is an island which sticks to the rule that no building be taller than the tallest coconut tree. The last vestiges of Earth are being colonised by Starbucks, Holiday Inn and Burger King, but there are 14 islands of the Cooks beyond Rarotonga, spread across an area of ocean equal in size to western Europe (two million square kilometres), home to less than 14,000 Polynesians.

Getting to some of them requires deep pockets, but not Atiu. I arrive on a propeller plane beside supplies for Nana Roberts in a large box that rattles when we touch down on the island's compacted coral runway. Though Atiu is barely 200km from Rarotonga, there's less than 450 locals living here. When I first came, in 2005, there was one restaurant on the island. And now? There's one restaurant on the island. But foodies might consider deep-sea fishing, or joining locals crayfishing by torchlight, then cooking up the catch over the coals of a beach barbecue.

Though it's adventurists who should come; to an island littered with limestone caves, full of human skulls. There are burial caves all over the island and there's the Anatakitaki Caves, home to one of the world's rarest creatures - a swift-like bird (kopeka) which navigates its way in the dark by using a series of clicks. Local guide Ben Isaia takes me deep under the earth here, lighting candles so I can enjoy a moody dip in an artesian water pool.

There's plenty to do here - beyond the caves and birds there's everything from coffee plantation tours to bush beer bar crawls - though I think the appeal to an island like Atiu is in doing nothing at all. I spend one day moving about with no purpose at all, driving slowly down dirt roads as piglets and baby goats bolt in front of me.

Air Rarotonga's two-island/four-night combo allows me two nights on Atiu before I'm flown to Aitutaki, 40 minutes north-west. Aitutaki's lagoon is the stuff of South Seas legends - shaped like an equilateral triangle, it dwarfs Aitutaki itself. This is the lagoon that spawned the hit series Survivor.

Fourteen tiny islands sit in shocking blue, all but one of which are uninhabited. Even on rainy days the water's so clear you barely need a mask and snorkel.

The island is home to some of the Pacific's most awarded five-star resorts. At mine the GM claps chickens out of the restaurant before I eat and goats keep the grass mown. Entire families ride around the island on the one moped and on Sundays Aitutaki shuts down for church; a jovial affair it is too: singing and eating's far more meaningful than any sermon.

And then I'm back in Rarotonga, and now this sleepy Pacific outpost feels like a megalopolis. The Wi-Fi works, cars whiz by at 40km/h, tourists sit at tables beside me and a couple swims at the same beach I'm on (move along if you see my bike, people).

There's so few opportunities left in this world to truly escape that seizing the opportunity to do so comes with its share of re-entry quandaries.