Gorgona

Declared in 1984, Gorgona was until that same year a Colombian maximum-security penal colony, whose reputation for harshness and isolation — in the manner of the French Devil's Island — kept both settlers and hunters away for decades, unintentionally preserving the island's biodiversity. Since the prison closed, its ruined buildings, today covered by the forest, sit alongside wildlife-watching trails and some of the finest coral reefs on the Colombian Pacific.