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In this issue of World Guidebook Tours, we'll be taking an exciting look at a historical route through the sunny Destiny Islands!

From the times the people of the lovely archipelago were at sea, on boats that had no room to spare for books, they still carried fables and fairy tales with them in song, creating an extremely strong oral tradition and culture of telling and sharing stories, keeping them alive and intact throughout generations.

Once settling began, as groups split onto their own islands and formed cities, there were both efforts to preserve the stories and those who were creating new ones, either wholesale from their new experiences, or based off the originals, but adapting them to new environments and times.

Trading stories when ships met at sea, when merchants visited one island from another, soon became part of the norm. As technology and printing moved on, it soon became common to watch as people began self-publishing their own stories. The lack of need to commit it to memory meant a move away from the traditional rhyming metrics, though several still keep to the original methods! After all, it’s proven to work, and is wonderful to listen to!

More traditional stories usually aren’t very big, written on leafs of paper and hung from lines zipping between trees, as people look at them, request to hear them. From children to adults, it’s a space almost anyone can participate in, and the appearance of physical copies of the stories allow for them to be carried between islands more easily (since there’s rarely time in a meeting to properly memorize all the new songs and stories that crop up!)

In this issue, as we take you on the tour of the archipelago, we’ll be following along to one of our favorite stories, that we feel go right to the heart of what the Destiny Islands are!

Our story starts right at the beginning, when people were still learning about the islands they had chosen to call home. Learning about what islands were livable on, which could just be stops on a long voyage, and so on. Luckily, we don’t have those worries, so we can just set off from a dock on the Main Island!

But back then? It was a surprisingly dangerous time! There’s still so many stories of criminals and plunderers who would take advantage of those trying to make their honest homes.

And in those times, there was a man who found some treasure amongst the waves. It wasn’t a king’s sum, but it could guarantee his family comfort for quite some time. But where would he keep it? To put it in his home was just asking for trouble, should anyone learn it was there.

He told his wife, holding onto their child’s hand, to stay safe, as he would find a safe place to hide this treasure. After all, it was far from uncommon for a man of the sea to be gone for weeks at a time….

And so, like him, we’re setting off, to the sea!

The first stop on the man’s search is one of the Island’s most popular tourist destinations, known mostly as the ‘First Island’- After months at sea, it was the first bit of the Archipelago the wayfinders of old set sights on, a lovely preview of what was to come! It wasn’t much more than a collection of sand, rocks, and low shrubs at the time, but if you visit it today, you’ll find a lovely outpost with a magical view of the islands ahead! With constructions made of reclaimed driftwood, and food and beverage stalls closely maintained by the main island, it’s a unique place to spend some time and rest up during a long tour!

But of course, that didn’t make for much of a hiding place, so away he sailed, his next destination being what’s now known as the Ship’s Cradle. Not so much where shipwrights live, but a lush forest planted and tended to by the islanders, specifically for the purpose of always having good wood to build all sorts of sailing vessels, for all generations to come. Tours of this island for pleasure purposes are generally limited, but are very common for school children!

To that point, they have often-maintenanced replicas of the original ships the wayfinders came to the archipelago on. They’re quite different from the more usual rowboats of nowadays, so all the kids running around on them means they need to be constantly taken care of, so future generations can learn just as well from the hands (and feet!)-on experience!

Still, such a well-manned island wasn’t a good place for hiding treasure, either, so the man of the story kept sailing. Several islands were already filled with blooming settlements, and who was he to put them in danger by hiding riches under their noses? And a good thing, too! While lots of the original ones didn’t survive, and ended up leaving to merge their groups with ones on the main island, one of those initial settlements, now called the Fishing Cove, is sailors’ main stop when on a voyage to rest and resupply! Imagine if it had been attacked for having treasure hidden all those years ago!

The islands were- and still are- wonderful. From the sandy beaches, to the reefs that let you walk in the ocean far away from shore and explore all the beautiful aquatic life of the region, to rocky peaks and crashing waterfalls of the less inhabited islands, where fishermen might dock on a long expedition but never set up permanently. 

But none are very good hiding places, and the man was starting to worry his seemingly purposeless travels might draw attention to himself, so he headed back to the main island. The city wasn’t there yet, just a collection of small towns scattered about on the beaches and in the valley in the center.

While the city has undergone major renovations, tall buildings with towers now dominating the landscape, the smaller towns around it still maintain the general architecture of times past, simple and sturdy, and generally just a single floor with a small attic addition on top. The houses often have small creeks and lakes woven between them, where people might gather at the end of a long day to relax, and tell stories. They’re also often used to teach children how to swim, due to how dangerous the ocean can be!

Speaking of the ocean!

So, the man traveled back, and found his wife distraught upon returning. See, while he had been gone, his wife and child had been taking a walk on the beach, when a large wave crashed over them, and the child had been missing since. 

There wasn’t much of a choice to make- Immediately, the man announced his riches to all he could find, on the promise that all who helped find his child would get a share. There was little hope for a child swept out to sea so viciously, but if his family wasn’t whole, what good would that gold be?

His village banded together, spreading their search far and wide, to the First Island and back, with no luck. As the last of hope seemed to die out, the man could not bring himself to return home, believing that, had he been at his family’s side, this could have been avoided. And so, instead of finishing the trip home, he stopped by a small islet next to the main island.

It was a small, almost overlooked thing. Outside of young couples coming over to take some fruit from the Paopu tree, it was usually empty. There wasn’t much room to build houses for families, or to grow plants, so it was left forgotten. 

And on that nearly forgotten shore, he heard his child call out his name. In disbelief, he looked at the island, and saw his child’s head peek out from a small cavern, next to a waterfall, and soon the rest of the child emerged and ran straight to his father, and they tearfully embraced.

The man returned to the mainland, in equal measures triumphant, and in disbelief that his child had survived being swept out to sea. The ocean was known to be greedy, for it was where all began, and from where all came from. It would constantly call out to its children, and try to pull them back into its watery embrace. After all, that’s what the protective charms of thalassa shells woven together are for- a sign to remind the ocean they all remembered where they came from, and that they were still people of the seas, even on land.

And yet, as the man reunited the villagers who’d been helping him and told his story, he began to find it wasn’t unique.

From survivors of shipwrecks, to people who lost belongings after storms, it seemed that the true treasures of the people had a way of turning up at that island, safe and sound.

So it was little surprise that, there and then, they decided on the purpose of that little islet: it would be the Children’s Island! It was close enough to the mainland that children could row over themselves, giving them a safe space to learn independence. Everyone that had ever been there, agreed. The islands were beautiful, and full of life, but nowhere else did they feel loved as on that little place, just outside the mainland.

What a happy ending, right? But that was also the only way a story about treasure like that could end! For people who came from brave wayfarers, who took to the unknown seas in search of a new home, the real treasure was always going to be their people and families- the ones telling stories, charting paths, and singing songs over the waves, not some pieces of gold!

And that’s true even today! Take a boat and sail near the Children’s Island, hear their laughter carry over the waves! You’ll understand what true treasure is, right there.