The world’s loneliest post office

BRITISH ANTARCTIC TERRITORY • Goudier Island, in the Antarctic, is not much larger than a football pitch, and most of its inhabitants are penguins. The nightlife on the island is nothing to write home about — but there is a post office: Port Lockroy (called the "Penguin Post Office") is the most remote public post office in the world.

Managed by the British Antarctic Heritage Trust, Port Lockroy is also a museum and conservation site. Every year, the charity hires four people to live and work on the island for five months, from November to March. It's not very glamorous — there's no internet or running water — and one of the jobs is to monitor the island's colony of 1,500 gentoo penguins. Despite all of that, however, about 6,000 people applied for one of the four positions in 2022.

Why is there a post office and museum in such a remote place? During the Antarctic summer, thousands of tourists visit the region — and send about 80,000 postcards back home to more than 100 countries.