Meijima is one of those names that sounds like a joke until you learn the story: the small islands of the Ogasawara chain were given family names, a sort of island clan strung out across the Pacific. Meijima, roughly translated, is the niece. It lies far south of Tokyo, around a thousand kilometres out in the open Pacific, and there is no road to it, no bridge, and nothing resembling a petrol station.
What makes the place important is isolation. These islands rose from the sea floor and have never been joined to a continent, so everything living here arrived by wind, wave or wing. The result is an evolutionary workshop, sometimes called the Galápagos of the East, with land snails that have split into dozens of species and plants found nowhere else. The reefs around the islands are full of coral, reef fish and green turtles, and in winter humpback whales come to breed. UNESCO recognised the Ogasawara Islands as a natural world heritage site in 2011.
For a rider, this is a place you see from the sea, or rather from the deck of a boat or the window of the ferry that makes the long trip from Tokyo. The journey to the main inhabited island takes about a day and the ferry sails only every few days, which means your stay is measured in days rather than hours. Once there, small roads and excursion boats do the rest, and the tour operators know the rules for landing on protected ground. Most of the small islands are off limits to casual visitors.
Do bring a bike if you must, but plan to rent a scooter on the main island, because the island roads are short and winding. Fuel and food are available on the inhabited islands, in a small harbour town with a handful of cafes serving fresh fish, island lemon and passionfruit sweets. Weather can turn quickly with typhoons from July to October, and the calm months of spring and early summer are the friendliest.