On my way to New Zealand, I made a detour and stopped in Fiji along with multiple other students who would be studying abroad in New Zealand this semester. Fiji is by far one of the most beautiful countries I have ever been to! We stayed on the remote island of Naviti which is a three hour boat ride from Nadi, Fiji (the mainland). I have traveled to many similar countries in the Caribbean, but I have always either stayed in a hotel in the capital, or in a hotel in a well known and populated town. It was quite a unique experience to stay on such a remote island, so far away from civilization for five days.
The island is covered with huge mountains; ones that seem to touch the sky when you look up at them, and is occupied by eight Fijian villages. All of the villages are divided by the massive mountain ranges, and traveling from village to village can take anywhere from hours to days, depending on the intensity of the hike and the weather conditions. While I staying on Naviti, I visited Soso which is one of the eastern tribal villages. I toured their lower and middle schools there as well as their church and meeting house.
The entire time while touring the village I could not help but think how miserable I would be living so far from civilization; yet the children there seemed so happy. This made my visit to 
Soso a very eye-opening experience. The children had essentially nothing but each other, but they were able to find happiness in the simple things in life like helping out a friend or learning something new in school. Once I got hiked back from the village, I really thought a lot about the way that I define happiness in my own life and what happiness means to me. My whole trip to Fiji really made me really appreciate the little things in life and made me realize how much emphasis I place on material goods to make me happy.