An island beach and its reef, above and below the waterline
Stays

Where you sleep changes the whole trip.

A villa on stilts and a room above a family kitchen are both good weeks. They are very different weeks, and the gap in price is enormous.

Start here

Five kinds of night.

Decide this before you pick an island. It narrows everything else, and it is where the budget is really set.

Over the reef
Water villa

Steps straight into the lagoon, and a glass panel in the floor you'll photograph once and never look at again.

From $420 a night
On the sand
Beach villa

More room, more shade, and the reef is a ninety-second walk rather than a ladder.

From $280 a night
Local island
Guesthouse

Family-run, breakfast included, and you eat where the island eats. Far and away the best value here.

From $65 a night
Built for divers
Dive lodge

Rinse tanks, drying racks and 6am briefings. Nobody minds that you're wet in the dining room.

From $110 a night
No fixed address
Liveaboard

Wake up somewhere new, three dives before lunch, and atolls you simply cannot reach from land.

From $190 a night
The list

Every island we sell

15 islands and boats, each one in at least one package with transfers and meals priced in.

How we choose

We have stayed in every one of these.

Not a site visit, not a press trip — a night, and usually several. It is the only way to know whether the house reef is any good or the generator is under your window.

We swim the house reef before we list the island
We eat the half-board menu, not the tasting menu
If we would not send our own family, it is not on the list
The pool deck of a beach villa, looking past loungers to the lagoon

Every stay comes as a package.

Transfers and meals included, priced per person. Pick the nights and we'll confirm the room.