‘Get me off this bloody island!’

“If I don’t leave Cyprus at least once a year, I go insane! Even paradise palls after a while.”

This is island fever.

Sometimes known as ‘rock fever’, the term was coined in Hawai’i and used to describe the feeling of restlessness, isolation and boredom experienced by those cut off from the mainland. But it can apply to any island in the world: anywhere that’s cut off from the mainland, and relatively small in both area and population.

The UK, Australia and Japan, for instance, don’t meet these criteria.