The widespread ownership of cars revolutionized resort travel by making it possible to situate hotel and recreational sites far from both cities and railroad stations. Florida and California owe much of their development to the American's love affair with the automobile. A British colony for nearly a century, Fiji became independent in 1970. Only about 105 of Fiji's islands are inhabited. Vegetation varies according to rainfall, with dense forests in the mountains, tropical savanna grasslands in the west, and dense vegetation in the east.
Mangrove trees dominate coastal areas.
Native Fijians, who were a minority in their own country at independence, are mainly of Melanesian stock. For long-distance travel to become comfortable and attractive, the Industrial Revolution had to provide transport that was both safer and faster than the horse and carriage and the sailing vessel. This was accomplished by the rapid proliferation of railroads in Great Britain and Western Europe starting in the 1840s and by the advent of the steel-built, oceangoing steamship in the 1880s. With these two technological advances the great age of luxury travel dawned, a phenomenon in which rich Americans could also participate once passage across the Atlantic no longer posed a formidable obstacle.