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Answer: Tristan da Cunha

Tristan da Cunha is named for the Portuguese explorer Tristão da Cunha, who discovered the archipelago, though he was not able to land on it due to stormy weather. Tristan da Cunha is also the name of the largest island; other islands include the Nightingale Islands, Gough Island and the appropriately named Inaccessible Islands.

The number of permanent residents is only a couple of hundred, not including weather station staff. It is an overseas territory of the UK, its main settlement being Edinburgh of the Seven Seas (named for Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh), and the locals speak a patois which is a mixture of English, Afrikaans and Italian.

The island only has one school, and no airstrip for planes to land on; the nearest airports are on the islands of Saint Helena and Ascension Island, where there is an RAF base. On the off chance that you might want a holiday on Tristan da Cunha, you would have to get a boat (usually a fishing boat or polar research ship) from Cape Town, which can take anything from 5-10 days, and make an application at least a year in advance.

Answer: Russia

Oymyakon is one of the coldest, if not THE coldest, places in the world. It is a village in Siberia, in the Sakha Republic aka Yakutia, and the nearest town is Yakutsk, the capital of Yakutia, which is 500km away. The reason why Oymyakon is so incredibly cold is because it is so far north that it gets little sunlight, with long winters, and is near two valleys which trap cold winds. Temperatures as low as -71.2C have been recorded there, and it's not uncommon for people's eyelashes to freeze! Many of the locals also use outhouses as the temperature causes water to freeze, making indoor plumbing difficult. Amazingly, it does attract tourists - the Pole of Cold Festival offers winter sports such as ice fishing, dog sled races and reindeer races, with many of the population being reindeer herders. Getting to Oymyakon involves flying to either Yakutsk or Magadan, and then driving along the Road of Bones (or Kolyma Highway, to give it its official name), so called because it was built during Stalin's era using the labour of exiled prisoners. One tour involves breaking up the journey by stopping overnight in the village of Khandyga, though as there are no hotels there or Oymyakon, you'd have to stay in a private house.

Answer: Amazigh

Although there are Bedouins living in the Siwa Oasis, most of the population are Amazighs (aka Berbers). The language they speak is Siwi, a mixture of Tamazight, the Amazigh language, and Arabic. Despite being located in the vast desert area known as the Great Sand Sea, it has plenty of trees, and olives and dates are grown there.

It is home to a Roman necropolis and hot springs, known as Cleopatra's Bath, and the nearby Gebel Dakrour is popular with health tourists, due to its sand baths, said to be great for chronic pain.

It also has an eco-lodge made from mud, like many of the buildings there. Getting there usually involves a bus journey from one of the bigger Egyptian cities, such as Cairo or Alexandria, which can take between 8-10 hours.

Answer: Socotra

Socotra is the largest island in the archipelago of the same name, and lies between the Guardafui Channel - a little strait off the Horn of Africa - and the Arabian Sea. Although it is geographically closer to Africa, it belongs to Yemen; the Yemeni Civil War, which began in 2015, caused a major decline in tourists to the island. For nature lovers and birdwatchers, it's a fascinating place; like the Galapagos Islands, it has several endemic species of both plants and animals, due to being extremely isolated. Do a Google image search for Socotra Island and you're most likely to get a picture of the dragon blood trees, so called for their red sap.

Another distinctive tree is the bottle tree, which looks a bit like a fat carrot or piece of root ginger! Wildlife include chameleons, skinks, birds such as the Socotra starling and the Socotra sunbird, and non-native feral cats. Most of the island's human population belong to the Soqotri people, though there are a few of Somali descent as well. Socotra can be reached by plane either from the UAE or from Yemen, though a few people have managed to get there by boat.

Answer: Peru

La Rinconada is a gold mining town in the Andes, and the world's highest permanent settlement. It sits at the foot of the Sleeping Beauty glacier. The rapid increase in gold prices during the 2000s led to a boom in population, but unfortunately, not in wealth; over half of La Rinconada's population live below the poverty line, and the town has no plumbing or sanitation systems.

The mines are unregulated and dangerous, and miners are traditionally paid on the last day of each month. Because it's so high up, the climate in La Rinconada is actually closer to a tundra climate, but electricity was not introduced to the town until 2002, and occupants have often had to go without heating because of electricity being scarce. Juliaca is the nearest town, and getting to La Rinconada as a tourist involves flying to Cuzco, getting public transport to Puno - the capital of the Puno region - and then either buying or hitching a car ride up into the mountains.

The journey up the mountains is a tricky one, as the roads are rocky and unpaved.

Answer: Opals

Ever since the first opal was discovered there in 1915, Coober Pedy has been responsible for supplying most of the world's opals, and opal mining is the main source of income for the town. Because of the harsh temperatures, many residents live in underground homes known as dug-outs, which are created by digging into the hillsides, and there are even underground shops, churches and motels. Aussie Rules football fans may be aware that it has its own football team, the Coober Pedy Saints.

The local countryside around Coober Pedy has been used as a set for Aussie films such as 'Mad Max 3' and 'The Adventures of Priscilla - Queen of the Desert'.

It's a very dry town, with little rainfall. You can fly there from Adelaide, which is 846km away, or get a bus or train; drivers are advised to take plenty of water, as it's a long drive!

Answer: Antarctica

Villa Las Estrellas, or 'stars village', is located on President Eduardo Frei Montalva Base on King George Island, the largest of the South Shetland Islands off the coast of Antarctica. It is part of the Chilean Antarctic Territory, which also includes the Antarctic Peninsula (aka O'Higgins Land) and Charcot Island.

The vast majority of inhabited areas in Antarctica are research stations - the town has one itself - and Villa Las Estrellas is one of only two civilian settlements on Antarctica, the other being the permanent Argentinian research station Esperanza Base.

As the nearest general hospital is 1000km away and there are no specialist surgeons in the town, all residents and anyone wishing to live there are required to undergo an appendectomy, and women are discouraged from getting pregnant.

Many residents are military who have brought their families with them. On the off chance that you might want to visit, you'd have to fly from Punta Arenas in Chile, and flights - which aren't cheap! - can be cancelled if the weather is particularly bad.

Answer: Barrow

Utqiagvik was originally named Barrow, after the nearby headland of Point Barrow, which itself was named after the British explorer Sir John Barrow. As part of a process of decolonisation, the town changed to its indigenous name in 2016. The Inupiat have lived in the town since around 500 AD, with hunting, fishing and whaling being a regular way of life; a whaling ship support station was established in Utqiagvik in 1889.

The population today relies on subsistence hunting and fishing for food as transporting food to the town is expensive; one article cited an example of a jar of peanut butter costing $10. Summers are short and from November to January, Utqiagvik experiences a 'polar night', where the sun does not rise above the horizon for around two months.

The only way to get there is by plane, as there are no roads; the town's airport, Wiley Post-Will Rogers Memorial Airport, was named for the American humourist and actor Will Rodgers and pilot Wiley Post, both of whom died in a plane crash nearby. Locals also use dog sleds as transport.

Answer: The Northern Lights

If you go to Ittoqqortoormiit, you can see the Northern Lights, though you have to go some distance away from the town, so that artificial light won't spoil it. Philip Pullman fans, incidentally, might be interested to know that the former name for Ittoqqortoormitt was Scoresbysund, named after the explorer William Scoresby (Lee Scoresby being the name of one of the supporting characters in the 'His Dark Materials' trilogy).

It is part of the Sermersoorq municipality, and was originally founded by the Danish explorer Eijnar Mikkelsen and a group of Inuit settlers, though Inuit had lived in the area in previous years.

As with the people of Utqiagvik, many people in Ittoqqortoormiit are subsistence hunters; sea ice makes fishing difficult, despite plentiful stocks of fish.

Although sea ice prevents ships from docking for most of the year, Ittoqqortoormiit is still a cruise destination. The nearby abandoned settlement of Uunarteq is a holiday home destination for Ittoqqortoormiit residents in summer.

Ittoqqortoormiit doesn't have an airport, so to get there, you'd have to either go on a cruise during the summer or take a helicopter from Nerlerit Inaat Airport.

Answer: Mules

Supai relies on mule train for post deliveries and food supplies. Surrounded by the red cliffs of the Havasu Canyon and overlooked by the two rock spires known as the Watchers, Supai has no pavements, cars or streetlights. Because of this, the only way to get there is to hike, ride a mule or get a helicopter ride. Supai is a census-designated place, meaning that it is defined as a concentration of population purely for statistical purposes.

A few hundred members of the Havusupai nation, one of the smallest Native American nations in the US, live there.

Their name means 'people of the green blue waters', after the four waterfalls along Havasu Creek, which has been used as a source of water for growing crops. The calcium carbonate content of the water gives it its blue-green colour. Because of its location near the Grand Canyon, tourism is the main source of income for the town, and it caters to hikers with a few shops, a cafe and a visitors' lodge; it also has a red rock church.