Wacky Travel News #7

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Pacific Nation Will Skip Entire Day This Week

Posted by George Prentice on Mon, Dec 26, 2011 at 10:07 AM

Before finalizing plans to spend some of your holidays in the South Pacific, you may want to avoid the island nation of Samoa; at least try to stay clear on Friday, Dec. 30. You see, that date simply doesn't exist there.

In between Samoa and Australia lies the International Date Line, the imaginary marker that determines when each day begins and ends. But since Samoa lies opposite of Australia, at least in time, it is regularly many hours behind the Aussies. About 25 percent of all Samoan exports go to Australia, so the time constraint is a bit of a challenge.

To solve the problem, Samoa is skipping Dec. 30. At 11:59 p.m. this Thursday, Dec. 29, Samoa will skip the 30th and instead welcome Dec. 31. Since Australia is among the fist countries to ring in the New Year, Samoa will join the party. Simply put, Samoa's time travel will shift it into Australia's time zone.

WOEFULTOURIST says, "If the experiment proves successful the government is considering the even more drastic plan of skipping the entire year of 2013 and having the population just chill out for 365 days. Things in Samoa are just so non stop hustle and bustle these days, the people really do need a break from it all."

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