Looking for a unique island experience? Not sure which islands to visit? Look no further! Transparent blue seas, thriving coral reefs, lush jungles and velvety peaks, here’s a list of the world’s most beautiful islands to discover that you need to add to your list of places to visit as soon as possible…
The islands of Africa and the Indian Ocean
The island of Madagascar is one of the most beautiful destinations in Africa, with its fascinating culture and its unique endemic wildlife. On the Red Island you will find no intrusive penguins and no clumsy giraffes like the ones in the animated film of the same name, but lemurs, chameleons, baobabs and orchids. Madagascar teems with plants and animals, most of them found nowhere else. Endearing and singular, Madagascar is an island of contrasts with a great deal to offer travellers: sea, mountain, jungle and desert are gathered in one place. And that is before the legendary hospitality of the Malagasy people. Off the northern tip of Madagascar, the volcanic archipelago of the Comoros (Anjouan, Mohéli, Grande Comore and Mayotte) is a little visited destination that has kept its authenticity: hotels and tourist infrastructure are scarce, which makes it a favourite for any adventurer after something new.
Another island paradise for adventurers, Réunion is wild country. Lush vegetation overruns the island’s three magnificent cirques (Mafate, Cilaos, Salazie), then the landscape turns lunar from the Plaine des Sables to the slopes of the Piton de la Fournaise. With 40% of its territory listed as UNESCO World Heritage, this small piece of France in the middle of the ocean will win you over as much by its gentle pace of life and the welcome of its inhabitants. If you would rather stretch out on a fine sand beach at the edge of the clear waters of the Indian Ocean, choose Mauritius, only 220 kilometres east of Réunion.
Barely forty kilometres off the eastern coast of Tanzania lies the island of Zanzibar. This island paradise offers visitors white sand shores, clear lagoons, palms and coconut trees, lush vegetation, and spice and tropical tree plantations as far as the eye can see. Another dream destination, the 115 islands that make up the Seychelles archipelago offer heavenly beaches and lush tropical vegetation.
In the heart of the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Senegal, lies the archipelago of Cape Verde. Between hiking and water sports you are bound to find what you are looking for among the ten islands that make up the archipelago, nine of them inhabited. Travel to Cape Verde and you will quickly discover that each island has an identity of its own. To the north, the windward islands (Barlavento): São Antão, São Vicente, São Nicolau, Santa Luzia, Sal and Boa Vista. To the south, the leeward islands (Sotavento): Santiago, Maio, Fogo and Brava.
The islands of North and Central America
Vancouver Island, in British Columbia, is the largest island on the west coast of North America. Set in the Pacific Ocean some 97 kilometres west of Vancouver, the island is very nearly all wilderness. Do not miss Cathedral Grove, home to the oldest trees in Canada. Some of them are more than 800 years old and can reach 9 metres in girth and 50 metres in height.
The Caribbean Sea holds thousands of islands, each with its own character. They do have one thing in common: white sand beaches, turquoise water and jungle. Vibrant Jamaica, much visited Aruba, the 700 islands of the Bahamas with their gleaming resorts, festive Barbados, the dive sites of the British Virgin Islands, the carnival of Trinidad, and also Curaçao, Martinique, the Dominican Republic, Grenada and Antigua: with a choice that wide, picking an island is hard. So I will name only two: Guadeloupe and Cuba.
Recognisable by its butterfly shape and by the volcano that looks out over the sea, Guadeloupe is green country streaked with waterfalls (the Carbet Falls), its cloud wreathed summits rising above the ocean, the Soufrière volcano among them.
The largest island in the Antilles and quite unlike any other, Cuba has an eventful history and a culture of its own: good cigars, dark rum that goes to your head, old American cars from the 1940s and 1950s, and landscapes as fine as those of Viñales.
South American islands
If there is one island archipelago in South America that every traveller would want to have seen, it is surely the Galápagos Islands (Ecuador), for wildlife found nowhere else: hundred year old tortoises, Galápagos albatrosses, giant iguanas, the smallest penguins in the world, lava lizards and marine iguanas.
Another South American island not to be missed, Rapa Nui, better known as Easter Island, is famous in its own right for its enormous moai statues. Isolated 3 800 kilometres off the coast of Chile, it is an open air museum. Another well known Chilean island, Chiloé and its brightly painted stilt houses, has kept its traditions despite lying close to the Chilean coast.
Off the Costa Verde, Ilha Grande is a tropical island belonging to Brazil. It is a destination for anyone who loves walking through wild country, and equally for anyone who prefers to do nothing at all on its heavenly beaches (Dois Rios or Lopes Mendes).
Finally, two islands on the great and legendary Lake Titicaca: Isla del Sol (Bolivia) and Islas de los Uros (Peru). Isla del Sol, the island of the sun, with its dry and rocky ground, is an exceptional place for anyone drawn to Inca history and myth. You can walk the ridge path there, also known as the sacred route of the eternity of the sun. On the Peruvian side of Lake Titicaca, the floating Islas de los Uros are man made. Built from dried reeds, these islands have existed for thousands of years, each one home to a small number of families of the Uru people. Some of them carry buildings such as a school or a church.
The islands of Southeast Asia
When you think of the dream beaches of Southeast Asia, you think at once of the islands of southern Thailand, and in particular of the Ko Phi Phi archipelago in the Andaman Sea. With good reason: this is the archipelago of the film The Beach, with Leonardo DiCaprio. Fine white sand, turquoise water, limestone cliffs covered in lush tropical jungle, an idyllic setting if you can look past the bars, the clubs, the tattoo parlours and the prostitution. Another Thai island that has fallen victim to its own success, Ko Samui is saturated in high season by farang and Thai holidaymakers in search of water sports, parties and the exotic.
Off the north-west coast of Malaysia, the Langkawi archipelago and its 99 islands is made for travellers after some peace: unspoilt beaches, coral reefs and lush mountains, and the famous Sky Bridge.
In the south of Cambodia lie two heavenly islands worth the detour: Koh Rong and its little sister Koh Rong Samloem. Fine white sand, warm turquoise water (you can stand up in it as far as you can see), jungle covered hills and almost no roads at all on these islands, still wild. Fishing villages such as M’Pay Bay (Koh Rong Samloem) and Prek Svay (Koh Rong) have kept their character and their strangeness.
If you are looking for a combination of surfing, diving and spirituality in Indonesia, the island of Bali takes first place. This voluptuous Hindu island of a thousand rice terraces has unfortunately become a byword for overtourism. Java and Lombok run a close second, and other islands of the Indonesian archipelago abound in unusual landscapes, fine beaches, lush jungle, lakes and a welcoming population: Sumatra, Sulawesi (Celebes), Flores, Karimunjawa, the Banda Islands. A bonus for Indonesia: no list can leave out the island of Komodo and its dragon, straight out of prehistory.
On the west coast of the Philippines lies an earthly paradise: the Palawan archipelago. Away from the tourist trail, it holds Saint Paul National Park and its underground river, a UNESCO World Heritage site. El Nido and Bacuit Bay have become the emblem of the whole region, known for spectacular scenery: islands and islets of rocky peaks plunging into the sea and forming vast lagoons of translucent water here and there. Palawan is also known for diving: sea turtles, dugongs, myriad colourful fish and superb coral reefs.
The islands of Southern and Northern Europe
Choosing the Mediterranean for your holiday and feeling at the end of the world, in Europe, is possible. Drop anchor and enjoy the wild coves of Corsica, discover the many faces of Sicily crowned by mythical Etna, savour the white sand beaches and turquoise water of Sardinia, swim in a natural pool in Malta or breathe in the scent of lemon and orange trees in the Balearics. On the Aegean Sea, the charm of the Cyclades is hard to resist for long, each island with a character of its own: Paros the heart of the Cyclades, Santorini the romantic, Amorgos the wild, Sifnos the island of Apollo, Mykonos and its festive nights.
Europe has several thousand islands, some of them uninhabited. A few are very well known, such as Madeira or the Azores. In the heart of the Atlantic Ocean, the Portuguese archipelago of the Azores (nine islands) offers a breathtaking range of landscapes: lush vegetation, volcanic crater lakes, and Pico, the highest summit in Portugal. As for Madeira, the garden of the Atlantic, the island of flowers, the pearl of the Atlantic, it is famous for its lush vegetation and for walks along the levadas (irrigation channels).
The Spanish archipelago of the Canaries is made up of seven islands (Tenerife, Gran Canaria, Lanzarote, Fuerteventura, La Palma, La Gomera and El Hierro) with a temperate climate all year round. Each island is a world of its own, proud of its history and its customs. Tenerife and Gran Canaria offer grand landscapes within several national parks and nature reserves. La Palma and La Gomera surprise the traveller with immense cliffs, frozen lava flows and narrow valleys where a rich laurel forest still thrives. Lanzarote, for its part, has something of a Greek island about it, with white façades and green shutters.
If you have had your fill of warm water and sunburn, northern Europe abounds in magical and varied islands, in the North Atlantic, in the Channel and in the waters of the Baltic Sea. Iceland, also known as the land of ice and fire, is an island of extreme landscapes: active volcanoes, majestic fjords, geysers, lagoons and glaciers, Icelandic nature is astonishing. Close by, the Faroe Islands are a paradise for travellers who love wide open spaces, picturesque fishing villages, countless bird species and flocks of sheep. This archipelago of 18 islands in the North Atlantic is the northernmost autonomous territory of Denmark.
Most of the finest islands of Scotland are easy to reach by ferry. Skye is the largest of the Inner Hebrides. Famous for its Old Man of Storr, it is reached by a bridge across Loch Alsh to Eilean Bàn. North of Scotland, the Shetland Islands offer magnificent scenery, with long unspoilt beaches punctuated by impressive cliffs sculpted by time, wind and spray. Mull is a good place to watch cetaceans in summer (whales, sperm whales and dolphins). Orkney is an archipelago of 67 islands, only 16 of them inhabited, which leaves a great deal of ground to neolithic monuments and to sheep, among them the sheep of North Ronaldsay, which live wild and feed mainly on seaweed. Lastly, Lewis and Harris is rich in Gaelic culture, as at the megalithic Calanais Stones, which have something of Stonehenge about them. Step into a pub to hear live Gaelic song over a good beer or a small whisky.
Finally, the Lofoten archipelago (Moskenesøy, Flakstadøy, Vestvågøy, Gimsøy and Austvågøy) and the Vesterålen are jewels of Norway. You can spend time there with family or friends without counting the minutes, under the midnight sun in summer. Between September and March the northern lights appear. And a stay in a rorbu, the traditional fisherman’s cabin at the very edge of the sea, is an unforgettable experience.
Oceania and the Pacific Islands
Setting off for Oceania, also called the continent of a thousand islands, promises a journey like no other. When people speak of the Pacific islands they often think of Tahiti, New Caledonia and Fiji, and forget the Cook Islands, Tonga, Vanuatu, Niue and Samoa.
The mere mention of Polynesia sets travellers dreaming of a change of scene and of escape in a setting worthy of an advertisement or a postcard: the blue of the lagoons and the green of the forests are the perfect backdrop for diving or walking. Tahiti, the jewel of French Polynesia, and Bora Bora with its lagoon of graded blues and its little huts on stilts, are island paradises that need no introduction.
The North and South Islands of New Zealand will delight anyone who loves nature and the outdoors. The North Island abounds in volcanoes and subtropical forest, hence its nickname of the smoking island. The South Island, also called the jade island, wears snow covered ridges known as the Southern Alps.
The Solomon Islands are an archipelago east of Papua New Guinea. Divers and snorkellers will be more than satisfied by waters that hold intact coral reefs and very rich marine biodiversity (tropical fish and manta rays), as well as wrecks from the Second World War. Beyond the underwater wonders, the Solomon Islands abound in magnificent scenery. On Kolombangara, make the most of the finest spots on the island, Imbu Rano among them: walk through dense forest to find picturesque waterfalls, caves and the endemic birds that live there.
Australia is an island continent with a coast lined with magnificent islands. The Whitsunday Islands, off Queensland, are an ideal destination for painters and photographers in search of inspiration. They are known for their white sand beaches and the extraordinary shades of blue of their waters. Kangaroo Island is known for its abundant wildlife and unspoilt landscapes. Fraser Island is the largest sand island in the world, with freshwater lakes and immense dunes.
Finally, the Hawaiian archipelago numbers 137 islands, six of them main islands: Kauai, Oahu, Molokai, Lanai, Maui and the island of Hawaii. It is the only American state outside the North American continent, since it lies in Oceania. In Hawaii, nature and culture meet to offer an unforgettable journey. Each island has a personality of its own: Oahu and the historic site of Pearl Harbor, Kauai and the cliffs of the Napali Coast, Maui and its Haleakala volcano (more than 3 000 metres), Big Island and its lava flows.
The world is full of island gems to discover, each offering a unique and memorable experience.
Whether it’s the pristine beaches of the Caribbean, the wild landscapes of Indonesia or the vibrant culture of the Mediterranean, the world’s islands are an inexhaustible source of adventure and relaxation.
Whether you are after peace and quiet, underwater exploration, breathtaking walks or rewarding cultural encounters, there is an island that will answer what you are looking for.