When TV producers needed a new location for “Survivor 4,” which began Thursday, they chose Nuku Hiva, one of the Marquesas Islands of French Polynesia, smack in the middle of the South Pacific.

They couldn’t have chosen better. For one thing, contestants can get inspiration from an earlier survivor, Herman Melville of “Moby Dick” fame, who met up with island cannibals in 1842 yet lived to tell a tale of survival.

Nowadays the locals are no longer cannibals. But a lot has remained unchanged. This is still one of the world’s most remote islands, home to fierce landscapes, fierce seas, fierce insects and fierce weather.

Plus, plenty of ancient customs and beliefs remain: The island’s carved tiki gods, for example, are said to be quite vengeful. Nuku Hiva is a “don’t mess with me” kind of place. Which makes it a great place for dishing out all kinds of misery for the “Survivor: Marquesas ” contestants.

That is not to say Nuku Hiva is a miserable place. Quite the contrary. This lush, volcanic island is savagely beautiful. And it’s this haunting beauty as well as the remoteness that have drawn artists and writers, dreamers such as Scottish novelist Robert Louis Stevenson (1888) and American writer Jack London (1907) who traveled to Nuku Hiva to find inspiration in an untouched place, an earthly paradise.

Yet few modern travelers come calling on Nuku Hiva. Because this brooding island is so inaccessible, mass tourism has yet to arrive. Which means no tour buses.

Nuku Hiva may be hard to get to, but there are rewards for your efforts. Because it is so isolated, you’ll find that in a lot of ways this is still ancient Polynesia.

Whether you come by air or sea, you’re immediately struck by the forbidding look of the place. I got my first look at Nuku Hiva from the rail of a ship. Through the morning fog, I could just barely make out a jungly green landmass which, here and there, erupted into shark-toothed mountain peaks.

This might be French Polynesia but there was not a beach to be seen. About 950 miles northeast of Tahiti, Nuku Hiva is part of the craggy volcanic Marquesas archipelago. About 2,500 souls inhabit this 12-by-9-mile speck, making Nuku Hiva the largest island in the Marquesas group and the most populated.

Like the rugged landscape, the people of Nuku Hiva (as well as all the Marquesas) impress you right off the bat. Capt. James Cook, the great explorer who sailed this archipelago in 1774, couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw the Marquesans. “Magnificent physiques,” Cook wrote in his log.

And in the old days, these magnificent bodies also tended to wage wars. Lots of wars. Tribes constantly fought with one another. One of their favorite weapons was a war club called casse-tete, or head breaker. A memo to “Survivor” contestants: It will be hard to go hungry on Nuku Hiva. There are too many coconuts for that. Plus, this fertile land abounds in tropical fruits such as bananas and breadfruit. And oh, yeah, wild pigs, too.

But oh, boy, it’s going to be hot work catching those oinkers.

Located just 9 degrees south of the equator, Nuku Hiva can hammer you with its brutal climate, something I quickly came to appreciate. Though the average daytime temperature was around 80 degrees, it always felt like a steam bath to me.

Weather can seem downright strange at times. Winds are often howling and seas choppy. These are not the kind of seas you expect in the South Seas. But then Nuku Hiva and the rest of the Marquesas are a different world from the other island groups of French Polynesia: different weather, different language, even the people look different. The men tend to be massive, positively mountainous.

But as tough as the people are, the land is even more so. Rough mountain terrain and dense jungle make it a trial to travel around. Often, it’s easier to take a boat from one isolated village to another since the roads, “tracks” really, are for the most part unpaved. Four-wheel-drives were the only vehicles I saw and when the torrential rains come, you can pretty much forget about the 4WDs even. A lot of locals recommend four-legged horsepower as the way to see the island.

Once “Survivor: Marquesas” airs to millions in 147 countries, residents hope to see a boost in tourism to their breathtaking island. At present, there are so few travelers to Nuku Hiva, no official records are kept of visitors, according to the tourist board.

“Survivor” may very well put Nuku Hiva on the tourist map. Yet unlike earlier visitors, today’s tourists won’t end up on the menu.