No road leads to Nakodojima, and for a good reason: it lies in the Pacific about a thousand kilometres south of Tokyo, in the Mukojima group of the Ogasawara or Bonin Islands, and it is a small uninhabited rock surrounded by reef. The name is a joke the old mariners would have enjoyed. In this group of islands, Mukojima means bridegroom island, Nakodo means matchmaker, and the nearby Yomejima means bride, so the three islets together make a wedding party. Access to the Mukojima group is restricted, and visitors need a permit or must go with a licensed tour.
The Ogasawara islands are oceanic, never connected to any continent, and that isolation has produced a remarkable natural laboratory. Land snails have split into dozens of species on the different islands, and the plants and birds include many species that exist nowhere else. The surrounding waters are clear and warm, with coral, green turtles and, at times, whales and dolphins. UNESCO listed the islands in 2011, in recognition of this evolution in isolation, which is often compared to the Galapagos.
People arrived late. In 1830 a mixed group of settlers, including Westerners and Pacific islanders, settled on Chichijima, and in 1853 Commodore Perry of the United States Navy stopped there on his way to Japan. Japan took control in the 1870s, and the descendants of the first settlers still live on the main island, with surnames that reflect their mixed origins.
The only way to reach the Ogasawara Islands from the mainland is by ferry from Tokyo to Chichijima, a voyage of about a day, and the boat sails roughly once a week. From Chichijima, small boats take visitors on tours to the outer islands, and the sea can be rough. There are small roads on Chichijima and Hahajima, where scooters are a good way to explore, with fuel at the main settlements, but nothing on a rock like this. If you do go, the best season is spring to early summer, before the typhoons of late summer arrive, and in the warm months the water is lovely for snorkelling.