For Sale: One of the Falkland Islands

Have a huge affinity for penguins? A family in Wales is accepting offers on one of the Falkland Islands, where tens of thousands of penguins from five species run amuck. An Important Bird and Biodiversity Area, as well as the third largest offshore island in the archipelago at 20 miles long by 4 miles wide, Pebble Island was purchased by Sam Harris' great-great-grandfather for roughly $500 in 1869 as he set up what the BBC describes as a fish curing business. Now powered by a wind turbine and solar panels, the island boasts small mountains, lakes, and cliffs; lodges for tourists; a thriving sheep farm; 125 beef cattle; and many penguins, "from burrowing and inquisitive gentoos to rockhoppers bouncing up and down the cliffs," Harris tells WalesOnline. "It's an incredible place, but it literally couldn't be further away."

It's certainly easier to get to Pebble Island from Wales than it was in the 1800s, when a one-way trip meant a two-week boat journey. But it's still easier to get to Australia in modern times, per the BBC. A supply ship does visit the island, a 45-minute plane ride from the Falklands capital of Stanley, every six weeks. But as no family members have lived there since the 1950s, Harris says "it's too much work to keep going." The family doesn't have a set price for the island, which hosts the site of the first land-based action of the 1982 Falklands War, but hopes to sell to a local with an interest in farming. Harris' mother, who currently manages the island from the UK, puts it this way, per Metro: "A foreign person would have to offer a substantial amount more than a Falkland Islander for us to accept it." (In LA, 157 acres carry a price tag of $1 billion.)