Abu Musa Island
"Every fisherman I asked about the island lowered his voice slightly before answering."
A small, quietly militarized Persian Gulf island at the center of a decades-long territorial dispute, with red volcanic hills and almost no visitors at all.
Abu Musa is not a place that appears in any Iran itinerary I’d seen before planning this trip, and there’s a reason: it’s a small island claimed by both Iran and the UAE, garrisoned by the Iranian military, and reachable only via an infrequent supply boat from Bandar Abbas that locals, rather than any official tourism office, helped me track down. I went mostly out of curiosity about a place I kept seeing referenced in news articles about Gulf tensions without ever seeing a single photograph of what it actually looked like.
Getting Permission, and Getting There
Visiting required checking in with a local contact in Bandar Abbas who deals with the island’s supply logistics, a short informal registration, and patience — boats leave irregularly, dependent on cargo needs rather than any published schedule. I waited two extra days in Bandar Abbas for a seat to open up. The two-hour crossing passed several other Gulf islands and a fair amount of naval and fishing traffic, all of it moving with a watchfulness I hadn’t felt on the Qeshm or Kish ferries.
Red Hills and a Fishing Village Under Watch
The island itself is small and geologically striking — reddish volcanic hills rising out of flat scrubland, not unlike a smaller, quieter cousin of Hormuz’s colored cliffs. A modest fishing village on the northern shore is where most of the roughly two thousand residents live, alongside a visible but understated military presence — checkpoints, patrol boats, and personnel who were polite but clearly aware of exactly where I was and for how long. Nobody made the dispute a topic of open conversation; a shopkeeper deflected my question about the island’s status with a shrug and a comment that “the fish don’t care whose flag it is,” which felt like the most honest answer I got anywhere in Iran.
An Island Defined by Absence
What struck me most was how little there was to do in the conventional touristic sense, and how much that absence said. No souvenir stalls, no restaurant geared to visitors, nothing performed for an audience — just a fishing community going about ordinary life in a place whose sovereignty is argued over in distant capitals while nobody here seemed particularly interested in the argument.
When to go: November through February, and only with significant lead time to arrange the supply boat and any necessary permissions through Bandar Abbas contacts — this is not a trip that can be planned last minute.