Ebeye Island: “The Slum of the Pacific”

This Ebeye Island travel guide will explain everything you need to know about visiting this tiny Pacific island — where to stay, what to see, what to eat, and more.

by Worldwide Wilbur, November 2018

What is it like on Ebeye Island?

Ebeye island is a speck in the Kwajalein atoll in the north Pacific Ocean.  Now, if you’ve been to Hawaii, and you’re kinda picturing Hawaii in your mind, I’m going to stop you right there and ask that you completely re-boot your expectations.  Instead, try picturing a crowded African city slum.  No paved roads, people living in homes made from found materials, no sanitation.  Garbage is strewn throughout the muddy streets.  Hundreds of children and wild dogs roam unwatched.  Now take that picture and drop it onto a tiny island with swaying palm trees, crystal clear water, and salty ocean breezes.  That’s Ebeye island.  The “Slum of the Pacific”.

Crowded, poor, isolated.

Ebeye island is tied with Manila as the most densely populated place on Earth.  There are 15,000 souls crammed into a tiny island of only 0.14 square miles.  The island is impoverished. The 900 Ebeyeans working for the United States Army on the nearby Kwajalein missile defense base can make $10-12 an hour, providing the main source of income.  There is no tourist infrastructure whatsoever, and no Ebeye island tourism at all.  It’s not a nice place.  But it is still a tropical island, it does have some clean beaches, and you can do all the ocean activities.  It’s just going to take some work to make it happen.

Why go to Ebeye Island?

• To say you’ve been to the 5th least visited country in the world, the Republic of the Marshall Islands.
• For missionary services, even though the population is already 99% Christian.
• Swim and relax at a white sand beach.
• Snorkel right from shore.
• SCUBA dive one of the many wrecks in the lagoon.
• go windsurfing or kitesurfing in the reliable 14mph trade winds.

A brief history of Ebeye Island:

Ebeye had little involvement with the outside world until German occupation starting in 1899, and then a Japanese takeover after World War One.  The Imperial Japanese Navy constructed a seaplane base on Ebeye in the early 1940s.  U.S. forces took the island in a bloody four-day battle known as Operation Flintlock on February 4, 1944.

Before WWII, Ebeye was a small community, supporting itself through fishing.  When the US started using next-door Kwajalein as a support base for the nuclear testing conducted at Bikini Atoll and Enewetak Atoll, they relocated all the Marshallese residents of Kwajalein to a small, planned community constructed on Ebeye island.

Then, in the 1960s, the U.S. military decided for safety and security reasons to evacuate a vast sector of the atoll to create a splash-down zone where unarmed guided missile testing could occur.  Entire islands of Marshallese were relocated to tiny Ebeye island.  They were provided with plywood housing and the possibility of work on Kwajalein.   There were some immediate problems with this plan.  There weren’t enough jobs on Kwajalein for everyone.  These new arrivals no longer had access to their ancestral fishing grounds.  They also had no tribal land rights to Ebeye, and were not neccesarily welcomed by the original Ebeye islanders.  The local “King” of Ebeye owns much of the land, leaving them trapped in overcrowded sections of the island.

Over the last few decades, the population has grown exponentially, creating a housing shortage and shortages of electricity, sewage, fishing, and jobs.  Tensions continue between migrants from other atolls and “original landowners”.  All sides are jockeying for a bigger (or any) share of the fat annual paycheck from the USA to the Republic of Marshall Islands.

My experience on Ebeye Island:

We departed the ferry terminal for the short cruise from Kwaj to Ebeye island.  Around 900 Marshallese from Ebeye work on Kwaj, but they all have to be off the island within two hours of the end of their shift.  The Army provides them a free ferry. It seems like a strange version of apartheid, but there are lots of American civilians who work on military bases on the mainland US, who also don’t get to live on their base. It’s just that here instead of driving home after work, they take a ferry to another island.

My host Eric arranged for a Marshallese coworker of his to meet us and drive us around.  Just a twenty minute ferry ride brought us to a completely different version of the Marshalls.  Kwaj has 1,000 people with perfectly manicured lawns, and freshly painted cookie cutter homes.  Ebeye has none of that.  15,000 Ebeye residents are crammed onto a tiny island, only .14 of a square mile, a tenth the area of Kwaj.  Some are living in houses of found plywood haphazardly nailed together.  Children flood the sand streets running and playing and occasionally throwing pebbles at our truck.

The ladies and girls all wear pretty traditional dresses.  The men wear the standard Pacific islander uniform of t-shirt, board shorts, and flip-flops.  The adults have among the highest rates of obesity and diabetes on Earth. The Marshallese who once sailed the massive Pacific with an expert navigational knowledge of winds and waves, now cannot escape one tiny, miserable, polluted sandbar.  Their healthy diet of fish and coconuts has been replaced by rice and spam, pizza and soda.

Every inch of space is filled with houses wedged back to back.  Makeshift plywood fences block in small sandy front yards.  Churches dominate the skyline, with every different Christian denomination present.  Pockets of graveyards with tightly bunched rows of white concrete crosses abound.  Trash is everywhere.  Soda cans, broken plastic, old clothes. There is no beach on Ebeye island.  I saw no kids swimming.  It is a sad place that reminded me of the urban squalor of Africa dropped onto what must have once been a beautiful tropical islet.  

Our soft spoken young guide Thomas is the son of an American father and a Marshallese mother.  His dad married a local woman while working at Kwaj, and moved to Ebeye once he retired. Now, Thomas also works on Kwaj.  He saved up to buy a brand new 2018 Mitsubishi pickup truck which served as our taxi for the day. Each morning Thomas rents out his pickup to a taxi driver and gets on the ferry to work on Kwaj.  When he returns at the end of his workday, he gets back his truck and a tidy sum of money from the taxi driver. Thomas is raking in the bucks. The Marshallese have a communal family structure, where one well paid member will be expected to share his or her salary among many family members who may not have any income.  It’s likely Thomas is taking care of brothers and sisters and aunties and uncles in this way.

Ebeye is now connected to a chain of two more islands via a rough muddy causeway.  The thinking behind building the causeway was that the Ebeyeans could move onto the open space and relieve the overcrowding.  The reality is that the private landowners of these islands, including King Michael of the Ralik chain, have not allowed it.  The newly attached islands are practically empty.

We drove to a secluded beach at the end of the causeway, next to the King Michael’s beach house.  I went for a swim, but Thomas seemed nervous that we were too close to the King’s property, so we soon headed back to Ebeye town.

The sun was setting, but we still had an hour to kill before the ferry arrived.  Thomas had procured us a case of beer and a cooler ahead of time, as it is illegal to sell alcohol on Sunday on Ebeye.  We parked in an open area at the west end of the island, sat in the bed of the truck drink Bud Lite and watching a fiery sunset.  Dozens of kids ran around the area with soccer balls, watching us the whole time.  Finally it was off to the ferry for a 20 minute ride from squalor back to Anytown, USA in the middle of the Pacific.

Go see Ebeye Island before it ceases to exist.

The average height above sea level in Ebeye is only 6 feet.  Once sea level rises 16 inches above its current state, the entire Marshall Islands drinking water aquifer will become undrinkable, rendering the entire nation uninhabitable.  Scientists project that this WILL occur sometime between 2045 and 2083.  The population will have to move.  Again.  There is no plan, or funding for this as yet.

Ebeye Island – Things to Know Before You Go:

Backpacker Daily Budget:

$115.  The only hotel is $88.  Meals are cheap, but beers will have to be from the convenience store at $3 each.  For a country with a gross national income of just $4000 a year, it is very, very expensive to survive here at a western level of comfort.

Cheap Beer index:

$3 for Bud Lite from a convenience store.

When to visit Ebeye: 

At 8 degrees above the equator, the temperature never changes on Ebeye.  Highs are 86, lows 77, every day, year round.  There is a rainy season from mid-April to mid-December, and is rains 10-12 inches a month during this time.  January, February, and March are the driest months, with 4 inches of rain monthly.

What languages are spoken?  

Marshallese is spoken by all, and the many folks who work on nearby Kwajalein will speak English.

Do you need a Republic of Marshall Islands visa? 

Republic of Marshall Islands (RMI) visas are not required for US citizens, who can stay as long as they like.  Visas are not required for UK citizens (until Brexit), who can stay for up to 90 days.  AUS and CAN citizens can get a free tourist Visa On Arrival to stay for up to 30 days. They must provide a “police record” dated within last 3 months, and a “health clearance” showing they are free from HIV/AIDS and TB; dated within last 3 months.  All visitors must have a passport valid for at least six months, must have sufficient funds for stay, and have an onward/return air or sea ticket.  NOTE: All these rules might be enforced on Majuro island, but if you arrive via the ferry from Kwajalein, there is no RMI customs and immigration check.  If you are a non-US citizen, you might want to check in with the police station on arrival.   Up to you.

Access to Kwajalein island is restricted to active-duty US military personnel and civilian contractors with proper orders. It is NOT accessible to the general public.  You can only visit if you are “sponsored” by a U.S. citizen working on the island.  You should book a room at the Hotel Ebeye in advance, and have that paperwork to show that you intend to go directly to Ebeye, not Kwajalein.

Getting to Ebeye Island: 

Ebeye has no airport.  99% of foreign visitors to Ebeye arrive via United Airlines at Bucholz Army Airfield on Kwajalein (KWA).  United Airlines “Island Hopper” Flight 154 departs from Honolulu, Hawaii on Monday, Wednesday and Friday and costs $1400+ roundtrip.  It makes one short stop in Majuro, taking a total of seven hours.  The Island Hopper flight 155 departs from Guam Monday, Wednesday and Friday and costs $1200+ roundtrip.  It makes stops in Chuuk, Pohnpei and sometimes Kosrae, taking around seven hours.   You REALLY want to fight for a window seat on either of these flights.  Seeing these little islands pop up out of the endless blue ocean is magical.  You can de-plane at any of these stops to look around, take pictures, and buy a snack in the tiny one-room airports.

Ideally, you should book your flight using United Mileage Plus Miles.  While the cheapest round trip fare from Honolulu to Kwaj is an eye watering $1400, you can book it for just 55,000 United miles, which have a calculated value of only $825.   I booked a multi-city flight from Maui via Honolulu with three stops in Kwajalein, Pohnpei, and Palau and then back to Maui using just 67,500 United Mileage Plus miles.  If you are booking an island hopping trip, you can choose to stop in any or all of the four Micronesian islands, the two Marshallese islands, and Guam and Palau.  To learn the most efficient way to accumulate United Miles, please check out my page Nine Steps to Free Flights Worldwide.

Air Marshall Islands also lands here, and provides service to 13 other islands in the RMI.

When you land at KWA, you’ll quickly learn this is not a normal airport.  There will be a flight announcement that it is illegal to take photos of any government buildings once on the tarmac.  Kwajalein is de jure part of the Republic of Marshall Islands, but it is de facto 100% America.  There is no contact with RMI government for any customs or immigration.  You’ll be met at the stairs by a couple of very serious, large, armed American police.  They’ll direct you to walk into an open-air cage of concrete and fencing.  You’ll sit on plastic chairs, and be given papers to fill out.  The large, serious men with guns will tell you all the rules of being on Kwaj.  No betel nut chewing.  Do not touch fences.  No entering unauthorized areas.  Many of the people in the cage will be Marshallese citizens who are continuing on to the nearby island of Ebeye.  Those folks (and you) will be marched into a waiting van, which takes you directly to the free ferry to Ebeye.

Getting around Ebeye Island: 

There are “taxis” on Ebeye, pickup trucks with benches in the back.  You get in and pay 75 cents.  They do a loop of the island, and you get off wherever you like.  Men and boys also use bicycles.  Women do not cycle as they are not allowed to wear pants or shorts.

Local Currency and how to get it: 

U.S. Dollars are used everywhere in the Marshall Islands, and are available at a couple of ATMs.   For more info on your cash-versus-credit card options when travelling, check out my post on How to Access your Money in Foreign Countries.

Stay Connected: 

There is no international cell phone service or data on Ebeye.  Your only internet access will be at a communications center called NTA – National Telecommunications Authority. This costs around 8 cents per minute.  You can also purchase a cell phone from NTA, and buy minutes to use just for local calls on the island.  You can also make land-line phone calls from NTA.  For more info on your telecom options, check out my post on How to Get Cheap Mobile Phone Service Worldwide.

Ebeye hotels:  

There in only one hotel on Ebeye.  If you are staying long-term in Ebeye, you could use the first couple days at Hotel Ebeye to meet locals and ask around to rent a room in a house or a former Army trailer.

• Hotel Ebeye – The cheapest room is $88.40 payable in USD cash at the time of check in.  It is clean and basic, with Aircon, and Armed Forces TV.  Their restaurant, The Little Mermaid, is now open.  The manager of the hotel is Marie Jacob; her email: hotelebeye@yahoo.com

Things to do on Ebeye Island:

• go sailing to desert island Bigej.
• go deep-sea fishing on another friends powerboat.
• Swim and relax at a white sand beach.
• Snorkel right from shore.
• SCUBA dive one of the many wrecks in the lagoon.
• go Windsurfing or Kitesurfing in the reliable 14mph trade winds.

There is no Dive Shop to organize diving, no store to rent surfboards, no sailboats or fishing charters advertising for hire.  You’ll have to just ask around about these things.  Anyone you ask will know someone who does these activities, and will put you in touch with them.  Then you can arrange what you want to do, and for how much money.  Expect things to move very slowly, for communication to be unclear, and for everything to cost more than it normally would.

Where to eat: 

There are just a handful of small restaurants on island.

• La Bojie
• Triple J department store Diner –  has fried chicken, cheeseburgers, French fries and chicken nuggets.
• Litaki Fast Food – Filipino food
• The Little Mermaid Chinese (inside Hotel Ebeye)- asian food

Ebeye Nightlife: 

There are no bars on Ebeye.  If you make friends, you can drink in their home.

Get a guidebook:

There are NO guidebooks that cover Ebeye.

What to Pack for Ebeye:  

Shorts, flip-flops, and a t-shirt is the uniform for all men on Ebeye.  Women ALL wear traditional Marshallese dresses.  As a western woman, you will not be expected to wear this, but you should wear pants or long skirts at all times in public.  Bikinis and shorts are unacceptable in town.  Bring swimsuits, snorkel, a hat, sunscreen, sunglasses.  Sunscreen will be prohibitively expensive in Ebeye, as they don’t use it locally.  Bring insect repellant.  To learn how to pack light and be prepared for anything, check out my post The Worldwide Travel Packing List.

Is Ebeye Island safe? 

• Yes.  Violent crime is low.  Petty theft is possible.
• Protect yourself from equatorial sun with lots of sunscreen.
• Use mosquito repellant as outbreaks of dengue fever are common.
• You should consider the following vaccinations – Hepatitis A &B, Typhoid, Tetanus-diphtheria shots are recommended every 10 years, TB
• When snorkeling or diving, do NOT pick up anything metal.  There have been explosions of WWII munitions, even today.
• To combat feral dogs, bend over like you are picking up stones.  They know this action, and will scatter.
• There have been recurrent outbreaks of cholera, dengue fever, and tuberculosis. In 1963 there was a polio outbreak, and in 1978 a measles outbreak.  There is no acceptable medical care on Ebeye.

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