"I don't think I've ever seen it so deserted down here, " he said as he chewed a ham and cheese sandwich on the steps beside Faneuil Hall.

NPR: Its Streets Deserted, An Uneasy Boston Perseveres

Here mountains give way to an expanse of deserted white sand that runs hundreds of metres from shore at low tide, with the warm water waist-deep for hundred of metres more.

BBC: Vietnam's prison-island paradise