Beyond Saipan the island arc runs on northwards: Farallon de Medinilla, Anatahan, Sarigan, Guguan, Alamagan, Pagan, Agrihan, Asuncion, Maug and finally Farallon de Pajaros, also called Uracas. They are the summits of active or dormant volcanoes, lying between roughly 120 and 600 kilometres from Saipan, and together they form the Northern Islands Municipality of the Northern Mariana Islands. Several have erupted within living memory. None has a port, an operating airfield, a shop or a place to stay, and only a handful of people camp on one or two of them for part of the year.
To the east and south, the seabed drops into the Mariana Trench, the deepest part of any ocean. Since 2009 much of it, together with a string of undersea volcanoes and the waters around the three northernmost islands, has been protected as the Marianas Trench Marine National Monument.
We include this region because it is part of the Marianas and because people ask about it. But we want to be clear from the first paragraph: this is expedition territory. Access is by occasional private, chartered, research or government vessel, with permits, and takes days at sea. For nearly every visitor the realistic way to experience the northern islands is from northern Saipan, in a museum, from an aircraft window, or through the extraordinary deep-sea footage that is free to watch online.
Highlights
- Understanding the volcanic arc that built every island in the Marianas
- Pagan’s twin volcanoes, black-sand beaches and wartime airstrip
- Maug, a drowned caldera where coral grows beside volcanic vents
- Agrihan, the highest summit in Micronesia at about 965 metres
- The Mariana Trench and Challenger Deep, nearly 11 kilometres down
- Deep-sea expedition footage of vents, sulphur pools and strange life
The Northern Islands & Marianas Trench in pictures
How long to stay and where to base yourself
There is nowhere to stay. The northern islands have no hotels, guesthouses, campsites with facilities, shops, fuel, fresh-water supply, medical help or mobile coverage. Anyone who does go sleeps aboard the vessel that brought them, or camps entirely self-sufficiently with permission.
Your base is Saipan. Stay in Garapan and west Saipan for the museum and memorial park, or in the north of the island near the Marpi cliffs, where on a clear day the view runs out along the line of the arc. See where to stay for the options. How long you need depends only on what else you plan to do on Saipan — the northern islands themselves will not take up any nights of an ordinary holiday.
