A British woman who travelled to a South Pacific island for a weekend getaway is still stuck there 18 months on and "scared" to return to the UK.
Zoe Stephens had been living in China for two years before she took some time off to travel around Asia and then on to Fiji in March last year.
The 27-year-old, from Crosby, Merseyside, flew to Tonga but hasn't left the remote Polynesian archipelago, which has more than 175 mostly uninhabited islands.
More than 10,000 miles from her family, Zoe has been living in a beach house in one of the last remaining places that is Covid-free, and said she feels "lucky" to be in Tonga though it hasn't been fabulous as it sounds.
She told CNN that she is planning to fly back to the UK at the end of August after riding out the pandemic in a country where people were not required to wear face masks.
She said: "Nothing is real here. People say, 'how can you leave a paradise island. And I'm like, 'it's great here. but it's not my real life'.
"It's not what I chose to do. I didn't choose to be here. It's amazing, but I don't want it."
Zoe was unable to fly home to mourn with her family after her grandmother died from coronavirus early on in the pandemic.
When she arrived in Tonga she only planned to be there for a few days, and spent about six months in limbo as she waited and hoped global travel restrictions and quarantine periods would be eased.
She has been studying for her master's degree in international communications and house sitting for a family who are stranded abroad due to travel restrictions.
Her days sound idyllic - walking her dogs on the beach, paddle board, snorkelling and meeting pals for dinner and drinks when she isn't studying - but Zoe insists it's not all paradise.
She said: "I just kind of keep myself busy. I have fun with friends by going to one of the three bars or eating and one of the few restaurants, something like that and then I head back home. It's really, really boring."
She said she has tried to make the most of it and people from back home telling her "you're so lucky" has been one of the most difficult things.
Zoe said it's been tough watching her family deal with devastating waves of Covid from afar and it has made her feel even more isolated.
She added: "I wake up every morning, and I see the beach and I see the island and it's great, but I wasn't enjoying it. I was being told that I should be really enjoying it, and I was like 'I don't want to be here though'."
She set up an annual marathon to raise money for an animal welfare society.
The Brit wound up in Tonga, home to about 100,000 people, when the pandemic exploded as she was travelling Asia and the South Pacific in early 2020.
Zoe kept travelling to avoid a mandatory quarantine in China and made her way to Tona, which soon went into total lockdown with all flights halted.
She travelled with very few possessions and has had to do without items she normally relies on, such as her spectacles and a Kindle.
"Half of what little possessions" she had were lost when Cyclone Harold hit the islands and the house she had been staying in was flooded.
A Covid state of emergency was declared by the island nation in March last year and it is still closed to foreign nationals.
Zoe opted not to board a repatriation flight from Tonga to Europe because she hoped things would soon open up and she would be able to return to China.
But that hasn't happened and she isn't sure when she will be able to return to China.
She decided not to fly home to the UK when flights were available because cases were very high in her homeland.
