There is no single ranking of the best islands in the world, because an island that is perfect for diving is wrong for a family and one that is perfect for a honeymoon is wrong for a walker. Santorini, Madeira and Lofoten win on landscape; the Maldives, Seychelles and Palawan on beaches; Raja Ampat and Palau on diving; Sicily, Crete and Sri Lanka on food and history; and the Faroes, Chiloe and Amorgos on solitude. Choose the geology and the season first, and the shortlist collapses from twenty islands to three.
Find your dream destination based on your travel style.
Regarding travel in 2025, island vacations are taking center stage. With travelers seeking natural beauty, wellness, digital detox, and unique cultures, island getaways offer the perfect escape. From famous paradises like Bali and Santorini to rising stars like São Tomé and Madeira, here’s your ultimate guide to the world’s best islands to visit in 2025.
Not all island getaways are created equal—some are made for luxury like Santorini Tours, others for thrill-seekers, and many for cultural exploration. Here’s your updated list of islands to visit in 2025, organized by traveler type to match your vacation style.
1. Seychelles 🇸🇨
Why go: Secluded beaches, eco-luxury resorts, marine parks
With 115 islands floating in the Indian Ocean, Seychelles is a paradise of untouched beauty. In the list of islands to visit in 2025, it remains a top pick for honeymooners and luxury seekers looking for total seclusion and turquoise waters. Private-island resorts like North Island and Fregate Island offer barefoot luxury, while Mahé and Praslin balance indulgence with local flair.
Top Experiences:
- Private catamaran sunset cruises
- Spa treatments with sea views
- Diving in Sainte Anne Marine Park
- Visit Anse Lazio—often ranked among the world’s most beautiful beaches
2. Santorini, Greece 🇬🇷
Why go: Iconic sunsets, caldera views, luxury stays, private Santorini tours
No island screams romance like Santorini. Perched dramatically above the Aegean Sea, its whitewashed villages, volcanic beaches, and luxury cave hotels make it a dream destination for couples. In the list of islands to visit in 2025, there’s a rise in curated experiences like private chef dinners and caldera yoga sessions.
Top Experiences:
- Sunset tours around the caldera with volcanic hot spring swimming
- Wine-tasting tours at Santo Wines and Venetsanos Winery
- Explore Akrotiri, the ancient Minoan city
- Instagramable tours in Oia and Imerovigli
- Romantic dinner tour in a cliffside restaurant in Fira
3. Fiji 🇫🇯
Why go: Remote beauty, luxury overwater bungalows, coral reefs
Fiji’s 300+ islands offer the kind of remoteness that modern travelers crave. Known for its warm hospitality (“Bula Spirit“), Fiji is perfect for those who want barefoot luxury and cultural depth. In the list of islands to visit in 2025, expect expanded eco-luxury resorts and wellness-focused experiences.
Top Experiences:
- Stay in an overwater bungalow in the Yasawa Islands
- Dive with reef sharks or snorkel the Great Astrolabe Reef
- Visit a local village and attend a traditional kava ceremony
4. Corfu, Greece 🇬🇷
Why go: Mediterranean elegance, history, family-friendly luxury
Corfu blends Ionian beauty with Venetian charm. Its old town, a maze of cobbled alleys, fortresses, and pastel mansions, reflects centuries of occupation by the Venetians, French, and British. In the list of islands to visit in 2025, Corfu balances sustainable tourism with high-end hospitality, offering boutique hotels and heritage-rich experiences.
Top Experiences:
- Explore UNESCO-listed Corfu Town
- Visit the Achilleion Palace
- Relax in Paleokastritsa and Canal d’Amour
- Wine tasting at island vineyards in Livadi and Lefkimmi
Best Islands for Adventure and Nature
5. Madeira, Portugal 🇵🇹
Why go: Cliffside trails, volcanic terrain, Atlantic views
Madeira has become Europe’s go-to island for active travelers. Known as the “Hawaii of the Atlantic,” it’s a hiker’s dream, with trails like the Levada Walks and Pico do Arieiro. In the list of islands to visit in 2025, Madeira is also embracing digital nomads, offering “workation” hubs and outdoor co-working retreats.
Top Experiences:
- Hike the Pico do Arieiro – Pico Ruivo trail
- Drive the wild Estrada Regional 101 coastal route
- Taste poncha in local tavernas after a canyoning session
6. Vancouver Island, Canada 🇨🇦
Why go: Forests, marine life, dramatic coastlines
Wild, rugged, and wildly underrated, Vancouver Island is one of North America’s top nature retreats. From orca sightings and ancient rainforests to surfing and off-grid cabins, it offers an earthy alternative to tropical escapes.
Top Experiences:
- Watch orcas and humpbacks from Tofino or Telegraph Cove
- Surf at Chesterman Beach
- Hike the Juan de Fuca or West Coast Trail
- Stay in a forest dome or floating eco-cabin
7. Palawan, Philippines 🇵🇭
Why go: Island-hopping, marine biodiversity, limestone cliffs
Palawan is often crowned the “last frontier” of the Philippines, and for good reason. Its aquamarine lagoons, karst cliffs, and remote coves are a magnet for divers and backpackers. In the list of islands to visit in 2025, travelers are venturing beyond El Nido to quieter spots like San Vicente and Balabac.
Top Experiences:
- Snorkel in Twin Lagoon and Secret Beach
- Take a boat tour through Bacuit Bay
- Visit the Puerto Princesa Underground River, a UNESCO wonder
- Stay in eco-lodges built by local communities
Best Islands for Culture and History
8. Zanzibar, Tanzania 🇹🇿
Why go: Swahili-Arab heritage, spice tours, beaches
Zanzibar is a sensory-rich island where centuries of African, Arab, and Indian influences blend. In the list of islands to visit in 2025, it’s increasingly popular with travelers looking to combine beach time with cultural depth.
Top Experiences:
- Explore Stone Town’s historical labyrinths
- Tour the spice plantations that gave the island its nickname
- Snorkel off Mnemba Atoll
- Visit the ruins of the Persian Baths and Maruhubi Palace
9. Bali, Indonesia 🇮🇩
Why go: Balinese Hindu culture, temples, food, yoga
Bali isn’t just for beach lovers—it’s a spiritual and cultural hub. From temple ceremonies to healing retreats and craft villages, Bali continues to evolve beyond its party image. In the list of islands to visit in 2025, Ubud, Sidemen, and the island’s north coast are drawing conscious travelers.
Top Experiences:
- Visit the sacred Tirta Empul and Besakih temples
- Watch a Kecak fire dance at Uluwatu Temple
- Shop handcrafted batik and silver jewelry in Ubud
- Stay in a jungle retreat and practice sunrise yoga
10. Ischia, Italy 🇮🇹
Why go: Thermal spas, authentic Italian culture, volcanic beaches
Often overshadowed by Capri, Ischia is beloved by Italians for its rustic charm, therapeutic waters, and volcano-fed beaches. In 2025, it’s gaining global recognition for wellness tourism and culinary escapes.
Top Experiences:
- Soak in the Poseidon Thermal Gardens
- Visit the Aragonese Castle by boat
- Hike Mount Epomeo for sunrise views
- Dine in local trattorias serving rabbit alla Ischitana
- Best Off-the-Beaten-Path Islands
11. São Tomé and Príncipe 🇸🇹
Why go: Raw nature, chocolate plantations, volcanic peaks
One of the least visited countries in the world, São Tomé and Príncipe is ideal for those craving off-the-radar experiences. In the list of islands to visit in 2025, it’s gaining traction among eco-travelers and photographers drawn to its Jurassic landscapes, cocoa farms, and wild coastlines.
Top Experiences:
- Tour a 19th-century cacao plantation
- Hike up Pico Cão Grande, a volcanic spire rising 370m
- Discover Obô Natural Park’s rare wildlife
- Snorkel with untouched coral reefs on Ilhéu das Rolas
Travel Planning Tips for islands to visit in 2025
To make the most of your islands to visit in 2025 vacation:
- Book flights early – especially for remote or seasonal destinations
- Book Tours in advance – Also consider choosing private transfers instead of local transportation
- Travel smart – many islands now offer work-friendly options for digital nomads
- Consider shoulder seasons – May, June, and October combine great weather and lower prices
- Be sustainable – Choose eco-lodges, pack reef-safe sunscreen, and respect local cultures
Santorini and the Art of the Island Escape
From tropical rainforests to volcanic coasts, the world’s best islands in 2025 offer something for every kind of traveler. But if there’s one island that consistently captures the imagination of globetrotters, it’s Santorini.
Santorini is more than just a travel cliché. In 2025, it will evolve into a complete sensory experience:
- Luxury with its iconic caldera-view suites
- Culture through ancient Minoan ruins and Cycladic heritage
- Romance in every sunset that paints the Aegean gold
- Gastronomy rooted in volcanic soil and timeless tradition
Whether you’re sipping Assyrtiko wine at a cliffside vineyard, sailing past the volcano on a catamaran, or exploring the quiet charm of Pyrgos village by booking a tour, Santorini delivers a timeless escape wrapped in elegance.
Yet, Santorini is just one star in a sky full of dazzling destinations. From the emerald cliffs of Madeira to the coral reefs of Palawan and the cultural treasures of Zanzibar, your perfect island getaway in 2025 is out there, waiting to match your travel style and spirit.
Ready to choose your islands to visit in 2025?
Explore our in-depth guide for each destination. Whether you’re drawn to the volcanic cliffs of Santorini, the jungle retreats of Bali, or the wild coasts of Vancouver Island, there are islands to visit in 2025 that match your travel mood.
Read more about Santorini Tours:
- Santorini Sightseeing Private Tour
- Exclusive Shore Santorini Private Tour
- Impressive Caldera Santorini Private Tour
- South Part Santorini Private Tour
- North Part Santorini Private Tour
- Santorini Historical Private Tour
- Santorini Sunset Private Tour
Best Islands in the World: The Short Answer
There is no single ranking of the best islands in the world, because an island that is perfect for diving is wrong for a family and an island that is perfect for a honeymoon is wrong for a walker. What exists instead is a small number of islands that are genuinely exceptional at one thing, and the useful question is which thing you want.
The best islands in the world for landscape. Santorini, Faroe Islands, Lofoten, Madeira, Kauai.
The best islands in the world for beaches. Maldives, Seychelles, Palawan, Whitsundays, Grenadines.
The best islands in the world for diving. Raja Ampat, Palau, Sipadan, Cozumel, Galapagos.
The best islands in the world for food. Sicily, Crete, Hokkaido, Sri Lanka, Penang.
The best islands in the world for culture and history. Crete, Sicily, Bali, Rhodes, Easter Island.
The best islands in the world for families. Naxos, Mallorca, Vancouver Island, Jersey, Sardinia.
The best islands in the world for solitude. Faroe Islands, Chiloé, Isle of Eigg, Amorgos, Fogo Island.
The best islands in the world for value. Naxos, Palawan, Sri Lanka, Sao Miguel, Lombok.
The most photographed of the best islands in the world. Santorini, and it earns it — the caldera is the only drowned volcanic crater you can sail into and sleep on the rim of.
How to Choose an Island, Properly
Most island lists are photographs with captions. The useful version is a set of questions, because the same island scores completely differently depending on the answers.
How far will you fly to reach the best islands in the world? This is the first filter and it eliminates half the shortlist. The Maldives and the Seychelles are ten to twelve hours from most of Europe; Santorini, Sicily and Mallorca are two to four. On a one-week trip, a twelve-hour flight costs two days of the holiday, which is why the best islands in the world for a short break are almost always the near ones.
Do you want a beach or a landscape? The best islands in the world rarely offer both. They are rarely the same island. Volcanic islands — Santorini, Madeira, the Azores, Iceland’s coast, Lanzarote — give drama and poor sand. Coral and granite islands — the Maldives, Seychelles, Whitsundays — give sand and very little else to look at.
Do you want to move or to stay still? Archipelagos reward movement: the Cyclades, the Balearics, the Philippines, Croatia’s Dalmatian chain. Single large islands reward staying put: Crete, Sicily, Sri Lanka, Vancouver Island.
What is the sea temperature in your month? The most commonly ignored variable. The Aegean is 25 to 26 degrees in September and 16 in March. The Caribbean is 27 all year. Northern Europe never exceeds 18.
What is the wet season? Tropical islands have one and it matters more than temperature. South-east Asia, the Caribbean and the Indian Ocean all have months that are simply the wrong time to go.
How much do you mind other people? This is the real dividing line among the best islands in the world. Santorini, Mykonos, Bali and Capri are extraordinary and crowded; Amorgos, Chiloé, Fogo and the Faroes are extraordinary and empty. Both are valid, and the disappointment comes from expecting one and booking the other.
What can you eat? Several of the best islands in the world are worth going to for the food alone. A serious food culture makes a rainy day pleasant. Sicily, Crete, Sri Lanka, Penang and Hokkaido are worth going to for the eating alone.
The Best Islands in the World: The Mediterranean
The most accessible of the world’s island regions from Europe, the most varied, and the one where the phrase best islands in the world is most contested.
Santorini, Greece. A volcano that destroyed itself around 1600 BC and left a crescent of rim around a crater eleven kilometres wide and four hundred metres deep. You sleep on the edge of it, sail into it, and walk on the black islets rebuilding themselves in the middle. Add a Bronze Age town preserved under ash at Akrotiri, ungrafted vines trained into baskets on the ground, and the most photographed sunset in Europe. It is crowded from June to September and it is worth it.
Crete, Greece. The most complete of the best islands in the world in the Mediterranean. Not an island so much as a small country: 260 kilometres long, with mountains over 2,400 metres, four cities, gorges, a Minoan palace civilisation, and a cuisine that stands on its own. Open year-round with a real winter population, which almost no Greek island manages.
Sicily, Italy. Greek temples, Norman cathedrals, Arab-influenced food, an active volcano and the best street food in Italy. The most historically layered of the best islands in the world, and large enough to need two weeks.
Sardinia, Italy. The clearest water among the best islands in the world in Europe. The clearest water in the Mediterranean, a granite interior, and a culture that predates Rome. The Costa Smeralda is expensive; everywhere else is not.
Mallorca, Spain. Unfairly dismissed. The Serra de Tramuntana is a UNESCO cultural landscape of terraced mountains and stone villages, and the island has three hundred kilometres of coast beyond the resorts.
Corsica, France. The most mountainous of the Mediterranean best islands in the world. The most mountainous island in the Mediterranean, with the GR20 running its spine and a coastline that alternates granite and sand.
Hvar and the Dalmatian islands, Croatia. Venetian towns, lavender, clear cold water and a chain close enough together to sail between.
Malta. The oldest architecture of any of the best islands in the world. Prehistoric temples older than the pyramids, a walled capital, and a language that exists nowhere else.
Naxos, Greece. The counter-argument to Santorini: sand, mountain villages, cheese, marble and half the price.
Capri, Italy. Small, vertical, absurdly beautiful and absurdly busy. Two hours from Naples and worth one night rather than none.
The Atlantic and Northern Europe
Cold water, dramatic land, and the part of the list that most people never consider when they think about the best islands in the world.
Madeira, Portugal. A volcanic wall rising out of the Atlantic, with levada irrigation channels turned into hundreds of kilometres of walking paths, laurel forest, and a climate that never leaves the high teens or low twenties. Year-round, which almost nothing else on this list is.
The Azores, Portugal. Nine of the emptiest of the best islands in the world. Nine islands, crater lakes, whales, hot springs, hydrangeas and almost no crowds. Sao Miguel is the gateway and Pico is the one to add.
The Faroe Islands, Denmark. Eighteen islands of vertical basalt in the North Atlantic, with grass-roofed villages, more sheep than people, and weather that changes every twenty minutes. One of the genuinely uncrowded best islands in the world.
Lofoten, Norway. The most dramatic of the northern best islands in the world. Granite peaks straight out of the sea above red fishing cabins, above the Arctic Circle, with midnight sun in June and northern lights from September.
Iceland’s Westman Islands. A volcano that half-buried a town in 1973, and the largest puffin colony in the world.
The Isle of Skye, Scotland. Britain’s entry among the best islands in the world. The Cuillin ridge, sea cliffs and a light that changes hourly. Busy in summer by Scottish standards, which is empty by Mediterranean ones.
The Aran Islands, Ireland. Limestone pavement, stone walls, Irish spoken as a first language, and a prehistoric fort on a cliff edge.
Bornholm, Denmark. Round churches, smoked herring, and the best light in the Baltic.
Sao Tome and Principe. Volcanic, forested, equatorial and almost entirely unvisited. Cocoa plantations and rainforest running down to empty beaches.
The Canary Islands, Spain. Four very different entries on the list of best islands in the world. Lanzarote for volcanic landscape and Cesar Manrique’s architecture, La Palma for stars, La Gomera for laurel forest, and Tenerife for a 3,700-metre mountain.
The Indian Ocean
The stretch of the best islands in the world that people picture when they say “island holiday”, and the one where expectations most need calibrating.
The Maldives. The purest water holiday among the best islands in the world. Twenty-six atolls of coral, almost all of it under two metres above sea level, with water that genuinely is the colour of the photographs. The model is one resort per island, which means the holiday is the resort. Extraordinary snorkelling and diving with manta rays and whale sharks; almost no local culture accessible unless you stay on an inhabited island, which is now possible and much cheaper.
The Seychelles. The most varied of the Indian Ocean best islands in the world. Granite rather than coral, which changes everything: enormous rounded boulders on the beaches, forested interiors, and a landscape rather than a sandbar. Anse Source d’Argent on La Digue is the most photographed beach on earth. More expensive than it looks and more varied than the Maldives.
Mauritius. A volcanic island with a mountainous interior, a lagoon behind a barrier reef, and a genuinely mixed Creole, Indian, Chinese and French culture that makes the food the best in the region.
Zanzibar, Tanzania. Stone Town is a UNESCO site of Swahili, Arab, Indian and European architecture with a spice trade behind it. The east coast beaches have enormous tidal ranges; the north has the swimming.
Sri Lanka. The largest of the best islands in the world by any reasonable measure, and often treated as an island destination when it is really a country. Tea hills, Buddhist archaeology, leopards, whales off Mirissa, and food that is the equal of anything in Asia.
Reunion, France. An active volcano, three collapsed calderas full of villages reachable only on foot, and some of the best trekking of any island anywhere.
Socotra, Yemen. The strangest of the best islands in the world. Dragon’s blood trees and a third of its plant life found nowhere else. Difficult to reach and unlike any other place on the planet.
Lakshadweep, India. Coral atolls with permit-controlled access and almost no development.
The Best Islands in the World: Asia and the Pacific
Palawan, Philippines. Limestone karst rising vertically from turquoise water, lagoons reachable only by kayak, and the underground river at Puerto Princesa. El Nido and Coron are the bases, and the boat trips between the islets are the reason to go.
Raja Ampat, Indonesia. The best diving of any of the best islands in the world. The most biodiverse marine environment on earth, with more coral and fish species in a single bay than the entire Caribbean. Remote, expensive to reach, and the standard against which divers measure everything else.
Bali, Indonesia. Rice terraces, volcanic peaks, temples and a Hindu culture in the largest Muslim country in the world. Overloaded in the south and still remarkable in the centre and the east.
Flores and Komodo, Indonesia. Dragons, pink sand, and a coastline that is largely unbuilt.
Koh Lipe and the Andaman islands, Thailand. Clear water and limestone, at their best in the dry season from November to April.
Langkawi and Penang, Malaysia. Rainforest and duty-free on one, and the best food city in South-East Asia on the other.
Fiji. The warmest welcome among the Pacific best islands in the world. Three hundred islands, a genuine welcome, soft coral diving and a culture that has not been rebuilt for visitors.
Bora Bora and French Polynesia. The lagoon and the volcanic peak in the middle of it are the image most people carry of the best islands in the world. Very expensive and, unusually, worth it.
Palau. The most protected of the Pacific best islands in the world. Rock Islands, jellyfish lake and wreck diving, in a country that has made half its ocean a sanctuary.
The Cook Islands. Aitutaki’s lagoon is arguably the most beautiful body of water on the planet, and it takes considerable effort to reach.
Lord Howe Island, Australia. The most tightly capped of the best islands in the world. Four hundred visitors allowed at any one time, two mountains, a coral lagoon at the southern limit of coral growth.
The Whitsundays, Australia. Whitehaven Beach is seven kilometres of 98 per cent pure silica sand, and the Great Barrier Reef starts offshore.
The Best Islands in the World: The Americas
The Grenadines. Thirty-two islands and cays between St Vincent and Grenada, most of them reached by boat, with the Tobago Cays a marine park you anchor inside. The closest the Caribbean comes to the Pacific.
Dominica. The wildest of the Caribbean best islands in the world. The Nature Island: rainforest, boiling lake, hot springs, whale watching and a hiking trail the length of the island. Almost no beaches, and that is why it is quiet.
St Lucia. The Pitons rising vertically out of the sea, sulphur springs and rainforest, with a drama that most Caribbean islands do not have.
Cuba. Not a beach destination so much as a country that happens to be an island, with Havana, tobacco valleys, colonial towns and the most distinctive music in the region.
Bonaire. Shore diving from a parked car along the entire west coast, in a marine park that has been protected since 1979.
Vancouver Island, Canada. Temperate rainforest, orcas, storm watching in winter, and Victoria at the southern end. One of the best islands in the world for anybody who wants wilderness rather than warmth.
Galapagos, Ecuador. The most important of the best islands in the world scientifically. Wildlife that has no fear of people, an evolutionary laboratory, and a permit system that keeps numbers controlled.
Chiloe, Chile. Wooden churches, stilt houses, mythology and rain. Utterly unlike the rest of South America.
Fernando de Noronha, Brazil. A volcanic archipelago with a strict visitor cap, spinner dolphins in the thousands and the best beaches in Brazil.
Fogo Island, Canada. Newfoundland’s outport culture, icebergs offshore, and one of the most striking modern hotels anywhere.
Kauai, Hawaii. The greenest of the Pacific best islands in the world. The oldest of the Hawaiian islands, and the most eroded: the Na Pali cliffs, Waimea Canyon and rainfall that keeps everything green.
Easter Island, Chile. The most remote of the best islands in the world. The most remote inhabited island on earth, with nearly nine hundred moai and a story about what happens when an island’s resources run out.
Best Islands in the World, by Purpose
The same ten islands appear on every list. Grouping them by what they are actually for is more useful than ranking them.
The best islands in the world for a first big island trip. Santorini, Mallorca, Sicily or Bali. All well connected, all with enough infrastructure that nothing goes badly wrong.
The best islands in the world for a honeymoon. Santorini, the Maldives, Bora Bora, the Seychelles or St Lucia. Two of those are about landscape and three are about water.
The best islands in the world for diving. Raja Ampat, Palau, Bonaire, Sipadan, the Galapagos and Cozumel. None of them are beach holidays.
The best islands in the world for walking. Madeira, La Palma, Reunion, Corsica, Skye, the Faroes and Crete. All of them have marked long-distance routes.
The best islands in the world for food. Sicily, Crete, Sri Lanka, Penang, Mauritius and Hokkaido.
For archaeology and history. Crete, Sicily, Malta, Rhodes, Easter Island and Santorini, whose buried Bronze Age town at Akrotiri is the best preserved in the Aegean.
For families. Naxos, Mallorca, Sardinia, Jersey, Vancouver Island and Fiji.
The best islands in the world for wildlife. Galapagos, Borneo, Komodo, Vancouver Island, South Georgia and Fernando de Noronha.
The best islands in the world for silence. The Faroes, Chiloe, Fogo, Lord Howe, Amorgos and the Aran Islands.
For a long weekend from Europe. Santorini, Mallorca, Madeira, Malta, Jersey and the Aeolian Islands.
The best islands in the world for value. Naxos, Palawan, Sri Lanka, Sao Miguel, Lombok and Albania’s Ksamil coast.
The best islands in the world for photography. Santorini, Lofoten, the Faroes, Palawan and Socotra. Landscape rather than beach, in every case.
When to Go, Region by Region
Timing separates a good island trip from a disappointing one more reliably than the choice of island does, and each region has months that simply do not work.
The Mediterranean best islands in the world. Late May to mid June and September to early October. July and August are hot, full and expensive; November to March closes most of it except Crete, Sicily, Mallorca and Malta.
Northern Europe and the Atlantic islands. June to September for the Faroes, Lofoten and Skye. Madeira, the Azores and the Canaries work all year.
The Caribbean best islands in the world. December to April. Hurricane season runs June to November and peaks in September.
The Maldives and Seychelles. December to April for the Maldives dry season; the Seychelles work all year with wind shifting in April and October.
South-East Asia. November to April for Thailand’s Andaman coast and the Philippines; April to October for Bali and Raja Ampat.
The South Pacific. May to October, which is the southern winter and the dry season.
Australia’s islands. The Whitsundays are best May to September, outside the stinger season.
The Galapagos. Year-round, with warmer water and calmer seas December to May and better wildlife activity June to November.
The rule that applies everywhere. On the best islands in the world, the shoulder months at either end of the high season give you the same weather at half the price and a third of the people.
What Islands Cost
The price gap between the cheapest and most expensive of the best islands in the world is a factor of twenty, and it correlates with distance and scarcity rather than with quality.
The most expensive of the best islands in the world. The Maldives, Bora Bora, Mustique and the private-island end of the Seychelles, where a night in high season runs from 800 euros into the thousands and there is nowhere cheaper on the island to move to.
Expensive but escapable. Santorini, Mykonos, Capri, St Barths and the Costa Smeralda. All have a cheap side: Santorini’s inland villages cost a third of the caldera rim, and Sardinia away from the north-east is ordinary Italian prices.
Mid-range best islands in the world. Crete, Sicily, Mallorca, Madeira, the Azores, Bali, Zanzibar and most of the Caribbean outside the exclusive islands. 80 to 180 euros a night for a good double in season.
The cheapest of the best islands in the world. Naxos, Palawan, Sri Lanka, Lombok, Sao Miguel, Albania’s coast and the Greek North Aegean. 40 to 90 euros a night, and often less.
What actually drives the cost. Not luxury — access. An island with one small airport, no ferry and limited water supply is expensive whatever the standard of the hotel. An island with a motorway to a port is not.
The flight is the hidden cost. A cheap island twelve hours away with two connections is not a cheap holiday. A mid-range island three hours away frequently is.
Where the money goes. Accommodation is fifty to seventy per cent of a typical island trip almost everywhere, and it is the most compressible item on every one of the best islands in the world.
The shoulder-season saving. Thirty to fifty per cent across the Mediterranean, twenty to forty in the Caribbean and the Indian Ocean, for weather that is barely different.
Mistakes People Make Choosing an Island
Booking the photograph. The commonest error with the best islands in the world. The image that sold you the trip was taken at six in the morning in May by somebody who spent a week waiting for it. It is a real place and it is not what a Tuesday in August looks like.
Ignoring the wet season. The most expensive error with the tropical best islands in the world. Temperature is stable near the equator; rainfall is not.
Choosing a coral island and expecting a landscape. Atolls are flat, low and about the water. If you want mountains, go volcanic or granite.
Choosing a volcanic island and expecting sand. Santorini, Madeira and the Azores are among the best islands in the world and none of them has a classic white beach.
Underestimating the transfer. Reaching a Maldivian island can take a seaplane and half a day after the international flight. So can Palawan, Raja Ampat and Lord Howe.
Too many of the best islands in the world in one trip. Two in a week is a holiday; four is a packing schedule. This is true in the Cyclades, the Philippines and the Caribbean equally.
Booking a ferry on the day you fly home. Weather cancels boats everywhere, and the cost of that mistake is always the same.
Assuming a small island means a quiet island. Capri, Mykonos and Gili Trawangan are all tiny and all extremely busy.
Assuming a famous island is ruined. The famous ones are famous for a reason, and almost all of them are empty before nine in the morning.
Not checking what closes. Half the Mediterranean best islands in the world shut from November to March, and a beautiful island with nothing open is a long week.
Why Volcanic Islands Look the Way They Do
A disproportionate number of the best islands in the world are volcanic, and the reason is worth understanding because it explains what you will and will not find on them.
Volcanic islands are built upwards rather than accumulated. Lava and ash pile into steep cones, and erosion then cuts them into ridges, gorges and cliffs, which is why Madeira, Reunion, Kauai, La Palma and the Azores all have vertical interiors and hundreds of kilometres of walking paths within a small footprint. The soil is mineral-rich and holds water, so the vegetation is dense wherever rainfall allows it.
What they do not produce is white sand. Beaches on volcanic islands are black, grey or red, made of ground basalt and scoria, and they are frequently steep because the coastline drops away fast. Coral has not had time to build reefs on the youngest of them, so the water is deep close in and the snorkelling is rock rather than reef.
Calderas are the extreme case, and there are only a handful in the world you can visit properly. Santorini is the most dramatic: the centre of the island collapsed into an emptied magma chamber around 1600 BC, the sea poured in, and what remains is a ring of cliff around water four hundred metres deep with two black islets still growing in the middle. You can sail into it, swim in sulphur springs inside it, walk to the crater rim on new land, and sleep on the edge looking down. No coral island offers anything comparable, which is precisely why a small dry Greek island with almost no beach appears on every list of the best islands in the world.
The trade-off is consistent across all of them. Volcanic islands give landscape, walking, wine, archaeology and drama, and they take away sand, shade and reliable swimming. Coral and granite islands give the opposite. Knowing which of those two lists matters to you settles the choice faster than any ranking.
Greece, Which Has More of Them Than Anywhere
Greece has around six thousand islands and islets, of which roughly two hundred are inhabited, and it supplies more entries to any list of the best islands in the world than any other country. It is worth taking the groups one at a time, because they are genuinely different from each other.
The Cyclades. Greece’s largest contribution to the best islands in the world. The postcard: whitewashed cube villages, blue domes, treeless brown hills and very clear water. Santorini for the caldera, Naxos for beaches and mountain villages, Paros for its harbour town, Milos for the strangest coastline in Greece, Mykonos for nightlife, Folegandros and Sifnos for quiet, Tinos for food and marble, Syros for a working nineteenth-century town. Well connected by ferry and busy from June to September.
The Dodecanese. Ottoman until 1912 and Italian until 1947, which shows. Rhodes has the largest inhabited medieval town in Europe; Symi is an amphitheatre of neoclassical mansions around a harbour; Patmos has the cave where Revelation was written; Karpathos has a mountain village where traditional dress is still worn.
The Ionian. The greenest of the Greek best islands in the world. Never Ottoman — Venetian, then French, then British until 1864 — and green rather than brown, with pitched tile roofs, campaniles and considerably more rain. Corfu for the town, Kefalonia for Myrtos beach and the mountains, Zakynthos for the shipwreck bay, Ithaca and Paxos for quiet.
The Sporades. Pine forest running down to clear water. Skiathos for beaches, Skopelos for villages, Alonissos for a marine park protecting the monk seal.
The Saronic. Ninety minutes from Athens. Hydra has no cars at all; Aegina has a Doric temple and pistachios; Spetses is wooded and wealthy; Poros is a channel away from the mainland.
The North Aegean. The least visited of the Greek best islands in the world. Almost no international tourism. Lesbos for ouzo and olive groves, Chios for mastic villages, Samos for wine and Pythagoras, Ikaria for longevity and festivals that start at midnight, Limnos for empty beaches.
Crete. A country in its own right, and the only Greek island with a genuine year-round life across its whole length.
What makes the Greek islands unusual among the best islands in the world is the density: you can be on a completely different island, with a different history and a different landscape, two hours after leaving the last one, and repeat that for a month.
Santorini Against the Rest of the List
Santorini appears on essentially every ranking of the best islands in the world, and it is worth being precise about what it does and does not offer, because it is not a conventional island holiday.
What it has that nothing else does. A caldera you can sleep on the edge of. The volcano collapsed around 1600 BC, the sea filled the crater, and the result is a ring of cliff fifteen hundred feet high around water four hundred metres deep, with two black lava islets still growing in the centre. You can sail into it, walk on the new land, swim in warm sulphur springs inside it, and eat dinner looking down into it. No other accessible island on earth is arranged like that.
The archaeology. Akrotiri, a Bronze Age town of two and three-storey houses with paved streets, drainage and painted walls, buried under ash and preserved. It is the best-preserved prehistoric settlement in the Aegean and it is under a roof, which makes it a wet-day option as well as a sunny one.
The wine. Ungrafted assyrtiko vines, some of them centuries old, trained into low circular baskets on the ground because there is no rain in the growing season and the wind would otherwise destroy the fruit. Phylloxera never took hold in volcanic ash. Nothing about this viticulture exists anywhere else.
What it does not have. White sand. The beaches are black, red and grey volcanic material, steep and hot underfoot. There is almost no shade anywhere on the island, tap water is not for drinking, and the villages are staircases.
The crowd. Two million visitors a year on an island of 15,500 people, concentrated in two villages between ten and six. Before nine in the morning it is empty.
Who should go. Anybody who wants landscape, archaeology, wine and a view. Anybody whose priority is a beach should go to Naxos, and anybody whose priority is a lagoon should go to the Indian Ocean.
Where it ranks. On landscape, in the top handful of the best islands in the world. On beaches, nowhere near it. Both statements are true at once, and knowing which matters to you is the whole decision.
Islands That Deserve More Attention
Every list of the best islands in the world converges on the same twenty names. These are the ones that consistently do not appear and consistently should.
Sao Miguel, Azores. The most overlooked of the Atlantic best islands in the world. Crater lakes, hot springs you can cook in, tea plantations at the northern edge of the crop’s range, and whales offshore. Two hours from Lisbon.
Chiloe, Chile. Wooden shingle churches, houses on stilts over the water, a mythology of its own, and rain most of the year.
Sifnos, Greece. The best eating of the smaller best islands in the world. The best food in the Cyclades, a pottery tradition, and three hundred and sixty-five churches on an island you can walk across in a day.
Vis, Croatia. Closed to foreigners until 1989 as a military base, which preserved it entirely.
Ile d’Yeu, France. Atlantic, cycled rather than driven, with a coastline that alternates between Brittany and the Mediterranean.
Ogasawara, Japan. A twenty-four-hour ferry from Tokyo and no airport, with endemic species that earned it a UNESCO listing.
Ilha Grande, Brazil. A former prison island turned nature reserve, with no cars and a hundred beaches.
Cape Verde’s Santo Antao. Volcanic ridges and green valleys, and some of the best walking in the Atlantic.
Ouessant, France. The far end of Brittany, lighthouses, and weather that arrives from three thousand miles away.
Amorgos, Greece. A monastery built into a cliff face, a dramatic spine of rock, and none of the crowds of its neighbours.
Gozo, Malta. The quietest of the central Mediterranean best islands in the world. Quieter than Malta, with a prehistoric temple complex older than Stonehenge and the best diving in the central Mediterranean.
Sao Tome. Cocoa, rainforest, colonial ruins and volcanic peaks, in one of the least-visited countries on earth.
The Five Kinds of Island
Almost every argument about the best islands in the world dissolves once you know that islands come in five geological types, and that the type determines the holiday far more than the country does.
Volcanic islands. The largest single group among the best islands in the world. Built upwards by eruption and then cut by erosion into ridges and gorges. Steep interiors, dense vegetation where rain allows, mineral-rich soil, deep water close inshore, and beaches of black, grey or red ground basalt. Santorini, Madeira, the Azores, Reunion, Hawaii, the Canaries, Iceland’s coastal islands. Expect landscape, walking, wine and archaeology; do not expect white sand.
Coral atolls. The flattest of the best islands in the world. A reef that grew around a volcano which then subsided, leaving a ring of low sand islands around a lagoon. Flat, rarely more than two metres above sea level, with brilliant white sand made of ground coral and parrotfish digestion, extraordinary snorkelling, and almost nothing to look at above the waterline. The Maldives, the Tuamotus, the Cook Islands, Lakshadweep. Expect water; do not expect a view.
Granite and continental islands. Fragments of a continental shelf, separated by rising sea levels rather than built by volcanism. Rounded boulders, forested interiors, and pale sand from eroded quartz. The Seychelles inner islands, Sardinia, Corsica, the Cyclades’ non-volcanic majority. Expect a combination of landscape and beaches, which is why they win so many rankings.
Limestone and karst islands. The most dramatic coastlines of the best islands in the world. Ancient reef lifted above sea level and then dissolved by rain into towers, caves and sinkholes. Vertical cliffs straight out of turquoise water, sea caves, and hidden lagoons. Palawan, Ha Long Bay, the Andamans, parts of Croatia and Greece’s Ionian.
Barrier and tidal islands. Sand deposited by currents against a mainland coast. Low, shifting, often with enormous tidal ranges and extraordinary bird life. The Frisian Islands, the Outer Banks, Fraser Island. Expect wildlife and space rather than spectacle.
Once you can identify the type, the rest follows. Every complaint people make about the best islands in the world — no sand here, nothing to look at there, no shade, no reef — is a complaint about booking the wrong geology.
Wildlife, and Why Islands Are Strange
Islands produce biology that occurs nowhere else, and on several of the best islands in the world the wildlife is the whole reason to go.
The mechanism is isolation. A population cut off from the mainland stops exchanging genes with it and begins to drift, and over enough time it becomes something else. Islands also lack large predators, which removes the pressure that keeps mainland animals cautious and small. The results are consistent everywhere: species become either much larger or much smaller than their mainland relatives, flightlessness evolves repeatedly in birds, and animals lose their fear of anything approaching.
The Galapagos. The textbook case among the best islands in the world, and the reason evolutionary biology exists as a discipline. Finches with beaks adapted to different food sources on different islands, marine iguanas that feed underwater, giant tortoises with shells shaped by the vegetation they reach for, and no fear of humans at all.
Madagascar. Ninety per cent of its wildlife is found nowhere else, including every lemur species on earth.
Socotra. A third of its plant species are endemic, including the dragon’s blood tree, which looks like an umbrella turned inside out.
Komodo. The largest lizard alive, on four islands and nowhere else.
New Zealand’s offshore islands. Predator-free sanctuaries holding species that cannot survive on the mainland.
Lord Howe. A stick insect thought extinct for eighty years, rediscovered on a single rock stack offshore.
The Azores and the Canaries. Laurel forest that once covered the Mediterranean basin and now survives only here.
Alonissos, Greece. The largest marine park in Europe, protecting the Mediterranean monk seal.
The fragility. Island species evolved without predators and collapse when one arrives. Rats, cats and goats have caused more extinctions on islands than anywhere else on earth, which is why several of the best islands in the world now have biosecurity checks stricter than their passport control.
Climate, and What the Numbers Actually Mean
Island weather is not mainland weather, and three effects explain most of the surprises.
The sea moderates everything. Water heats and cools far more slowly than land, so islands have narrower temperature ranges than the nearest mainland. Santorini rarely freezes and rarely exceeds 34 degrees; Athens does both.
Sea temperature lags air temperature by about two months. The single most useful fact for planning a trip to any of the temperate best islands in the world. The Mediterranean is coldest in March and warmest in September, which is why late September beats June for swimming and April feels colder than it looks.
Mountains make their own weather. Any island with height has a wet windward side and a dry leeward side. Madeira’s north is green and its south is not. Kauai has one of the wettest places on earth and a dry southern coast. On volcanic islands this can mean two entirely different holidays twenty kilometres apart.
Wind is under-reported. The meltemi across the Aegean from June to September, the trade winds in the Caribbean, the alize in the Indian Ocean. Wind decides whether boats run, whether exposed beaches are usable, and whether an August afternoon is pleasant or unbearable.
Rainfall matters more than temperature in the tropics. Temperature barely moves across the year near the equator. Rainfall moves enormously, and the wet season is the difference between a good trip and a wasted one.
Hurricane and cyclone seasons are non-negotiable. June to November in the Caribbean, peaking in September. November to April in the South Pacific and the southern Indian Ocean.
What to check before booking. Sea temperature for your month, rainfall for your month, prevailing wind, and whether anything closes. Those four settle more about a trip to the best islands in the world than any ranking will.
Planning the Trip: The Practical Layer
Choosing between the best islands in the world is the enjoyable part. What follows is the part that decides whether the trip works.
Flights to the best islands in the world. Most islands have one small airport with a short runway, limited slots and seasonal routes that appear in April and vanish in October. Check whether your route exists in your month rather than assuming, and expect a connection through a mainland hub for anything outside the peak.
The transfer after the flight. Frequently longer than people budget for. A seaplane in the Maldives, a bangka in Palawan, a switchback road from a port in the Cyclades, a ferry in the Sporades. Add it to the itinerary as a leg in its own right.
Ferries between the best islands in the world. Cheaper, slower and weather-dependent everywhere. Conventional ferries sail in conditions that ground the fast catamarans. Schedules thin dramatically outside the season, and the single rule that applies on every island on earth is never to book a crossing on the day of an international flight.
Ground transport. Most islands have a skeleton bus network routed through one town, a shortage of taxis, and hire cars that sell out in high season. On small islands the answer is usually a hire car for part of the stay and feet for the rest; on cliff islands it is a driver.
Accommodation types. Resorts on atolls, boutique hotels on cliffs, family guesthouses in villages, and apartments almost everywhere. On the best islands in the world the location matters more than the standard: a room ten minutes from the famous view costs a third of the same room with it.
Water and power. Dry islands run on desalination or tankers, and outages are normal on the smaller ones. Tap water is not drinkable on much of the Mediterranean.
Connectivity. Good across Europe and patchy in the Pacific and parts of South-East Asia. Do not assume a remote island has usable data.
Money. Cards work in island towns and not always in island villages. Cash machines on small islands run out at weekends in high season.
Health on the best islands in the world. Small islands have a clinic rather than a hospital, and serious cases are transferred by boat or helicopter. Travel insurance that covers evacuation matters more here than on the mainland.
What to pack that people forget. Shoes with grip for polished stone and volcanic scree, a windproof layer, water shoes for urchins, reef-safe sunscreen, and a rain shell even in a dry month.
Sample Trips, by Length
A long weekend among the best islands in the world. Three to four nights on one island, no more. Santorini, Mallorca, Madeira, Malta or Jersey — all short-haul, all with direct flights in season, and all worth a compressed visit.
One week, first trip. Two islands at most. Santorini and Naxos; Mallorca and Menorca; Sicily on its own. The temptation is always to add a third and the answer is always not to.
One week, long-haul. One island only. The Maldives, the Seychelles, Bali or the Caribbean. Two travel days out of seven means anything else is a schedule rather than a holiday.
Ten days. Two islands plus a city. Athens and two Cyclades; Palermo and two Aeolians; Lisbon and Sao Miguel.
Two weeks among the best islands in the world. Either one large island properly — Crete, Sicily, Sri Lanka, Vancouver Island — or three small ones with real time on each.
Three weeks or more. An archipelago traverse. The Cyclades, the Philippines, Indonesia’s islands east of Bali, or the Azores across three or four of the nine.
The universal ratio. Allow three nights minimum per island and half a day for every crossing. Applied honestly, that single rule improves a trip to the best islands in the world more than any other planning decision.
How These Lists Get Made
It is worth understanding where rankings of the best islands in the world come from, because it explains why the same names keep appearing.
Most published lists fall into three categories. Readers’ polls, in which a travel magazine’s subscribers vote — which measures who reads that magazine and where they can afford to go, not island quality. Editorial lists, which are one or two writers’ opinions, frequently written without visiting most of the entries. And affiliate lists, in which the ranking correlates with which hotels pay commission.
None of that makes them useless. It does mean the same twenty islands recur — the Maldives, Bora Bora, Santorini, Bali, the Seychelles, Maui, Palawan, Capri — because they are photogenic, well-marketed and reachable. It also means genuinely extraordinary islands with no hotel industry, no direct flights and no marketing budget almost never appear: the Faroes, Chiloe, Socotra, Sao Tome, Ogasawara.
The practical consequence is to read any ranking as a shortlist of well-served destinations rather than a judgement of quality, and then apply your own filters: flight length, geology, season, crowd tolerance and what you want to eat. Do that and the shortlist collapses from twenty islands to three, which is a far more useful number.
The one thing rankings do get right is that a small number of islands are genuinely unlike anywhere else — an island built around a flooded volcanic crater, a lagoon with an extinct volcano in the middle, a limestone forest growing out of the sea, an archipelago where the animals have never learned to run away. Those are the ones worth crossing the world for, and they are the reason the phrase best islands in the world means anything at all.
Twenty Islands, Compared Directly
Rather than another ranking, here are twenty of the best islands in the world set against each other on the five things that decide a trip: flight length from Europe, landscape, beaches, crowds and cost.
Santorini, Greece. Three to four hours. Landscape exceptional, beaches poor, crowds heavy in season, cost high on the rim and moderate inland. The caldera is the argument and there is no substitute for it.
Crete, Greece. Three to four hours. Landscape excellent, beaches excellent, crowds moderate, cost moderate. The most complete island in the Mediterranean and open year-round.
Naxos, Greece. Four hours via Athens. Landscape good, beaches excellent, crowds light, cost low. The best value of all the Greek entries on any list of the best islands in the world.
Sicily, Italy. Three hours. Landscape excellent, beaches good, crowds moderate, cost moderate. More history per square kilometre than anywhere else on this page.
Sardinia, Italy. Two and a half hours. Landscape excellent, beaches exceptional, crowds moderate, cost variable. The clearest water in the Mediterranean.
Mallorca, Spain. Two hours. Landscape excellent in the Tramuntana, beaches good, crowds heavy on the coast and light inland, cost moderate.
Corsica, France. Two hours. Landscape exceptional, beaches excellent, crowds moderate, cost high. The GR20 is the hardest long walk in Europe.
Madeira, Portugal. Four hours. Landscape exceptional, beaches almost none, crowds moderate, cost low to moderate. Year-round, which very little else is.
Sao Miguel, Azores. Four hours. Landscape exceptional, beaches poor, crowds light, cost low. The most underrated of the best islands in the world within reach of Europe.
The Faroe Islands. Three hours via Copenhagen. Landscape exceptional, beaches none, crowds very light, cost high. Weather is the entire variable.
Lofoten, Norway. Four hours with a connection. Landscape exceptional, beaches spectacular and freezing, crowds light, cost high.
Skye, Scotland. Two hours plus a long drive. Landscape exceptional, beaches good and cold, crowds moderate in summer, cost moderate.
Malta and Gozo. Three hours. Landscape moderate, beaches limited, crowds moderate, cost low. Prehistoric temples older than the pyramids.
The Maldives. Ten hours. Landscape none above water and extraordinary below it, beaches perfect, crowds nil within a resort, cost very high. The purest water holiday available.
The Seychelles. Ten hours. Landscape excellent, beaches exceptional, crowds light, cost very high. Granite boulders, forest and sand together.
Zanzibar, Tanzania. Nine hours. Landscape moderate, beaches excellent, crowds moderate, cost low to moderate. Stone Town carries the trip.
Sri Lanka. Ten to eleven hours. Landscape exceptional, beaches excellent, crowds moderate, cost low. Effectively a country rather than an island.
Palawan, Philippines. Sixteen hours with connections. Landscape exceptional, beaches exceptional, crowds moderate, cost low. The limestone karst is the reason.
Bali, Indonesia. Sixteen hours. Landscape excellent, beaches variable, crowds very heavy in the south, cost low. The interior redeems it entirely.
Vancouver Island, Canada. Ten hours. Landscape exceptional, beaches cold and wild, crowds light, cost moderate. Whales, rainforest and winter storms.
Read down that list and the pattern is clear. The best islands in the world are not interchangeable and almost none of them scores well on everything. The ones that come closest — Crete, Sardinia, Sri Lanka, the Seychelles — are the ones large enough or varied enough to contain several different holidays at once.
Islands as an Idea
There is a reason lists of the best islands in the world outnumber lists of the best valleys, coastlines or mountain ranges by an enormous margin, and it is not entirely about beaches.
An island is legible. It has an edge you can see, a size you can hold in your head, and a completeness that a stretch of mainland coast does not. You can circumnavigate it, walk across it, or stand on a high point and see the whole of it at once. That is unusual in modern travel, where almost everywhere else continues past the horizon in every direction, and it produces a particular kind of satisfaction that has very little to do with the weather.
Islands are also, by definition, places you have to decide to go to. Nobody passes through an island. That single fact changes the character of everywhere on this list: a ferry or a flight is a threshold, arrival is an event, and the population on the other side of it knows perfectly well that everybody present chose to be there. The best islands in the world all share this, from a Cycladic port at midnight to a seaplane dock in the Maldives.
The isolation that produces strange biology produces strange culture in exactly the same way. Island dialects diverge from mainland languages. Island food uses what grows in poor soil and what the sea provides, which is why the cooking on Santorini, Sifnos, Sicily and Sri Lanka is so specific. Island architecture responds to what is locally available: no timber means vaulted roofs and thick walls, which is why the Cyclades look the way they do; abundant wood means shingles and stilts, which is why Chiloe looks the way it does. Island music, festivals and superstitions all drift the same way. None of this is preserved deliberately; it simply had nowhere to be diluted.
Islands are also finite in a way that is increasingly visible. Water runs out. Land is limited. A single road serves everybody. When two million visitors arrive somewhere with fifteen thousand residents, the constraint is not aesthetic but physical, and the islands that will still be on lists of the best islands in the world in twenty years are the ones now capping numbers, protecting water and returning tourism money to the people who live there year-round.
And there is the thing that no list can rank, which is the moment on any decent island when the ferry pulls out, the day trippers go with it, and the place quietly becomes itself again — the harbour empties, the tavernas fill with people who live there, and the island that was a photograph at four in the afternoon turns into somewhere real by nine in the evening. That is available on every one of the best islands in the world, it costs nothing, and it is the single strongest argument for staying a night rather than passing through.
Overtourism, and Choosing Responsibly
Several of the best islands in the world are being visibly changed by the number of people who want to see them, and it is worth knowing where the pressure points are and what an individual visitor can actually do about them.
The problem is rarely the annual total. It is concentration. Santorini receives well over two million visitors a year on an island of about 15,500 residents, and a large share of them arrive on cruise ships that dock for a single day, come ashore between nine and five, and are bussed between two villages. The same pattern applies at Dubrovnik, Venice, Capri and Mykonos. The island is not full; two streets in it are full, for seven hours.
The practical consequence is that the single most useful thing a visitor can do is shift their hours and their geography. Oia at seven in the morning is empty. Akrotiri at opening is quiet. The inland villages are quiet all day, every day, in every month. The same is true of the Cinque Terre, of Bali’s centre and east, and of most of the Caribbean’s interiors.
Where caps on the best islands in the world already exist. The Galapagos, Lord Howe, Fernando de Noronha and Komodo all limit numbers. Several Greek islands have introduced cruise-passenger caps and berth fees. Expect more of this rather than less.
Water is the real constraint. Most dry islands run on desalination or tankers. A pool and daily towel changes on an island with no rainfall between May and September carry a cost that is not on the bill.
Where the money goes. An all-inclusive resort on a leased island returns very little to the local economy. A family-run guesthouse, a village taverna and a local driver return almost all of it.
Stay longer, move less. The best single rule for the best islands in the world. Four nights on one island puts more into it and takes less out of you than one night on each of four.
Go in the shoulder. It spreads the season, keeps businesses open longer, and gets you a better trip. On the best islands in the world this is the rare choice that is better for everybody at once.
Island Hopping, and How It Actually Works
Half the appeal of an archipelago is moving between islands, and it is consistently harder and slower than people expect.
The Cyclades, Greece. The best-connected of the best islands in the world for independent travel. The best-connected archipelago in the world for independent travel. Fast catamarans and conventional ferries run daily in season along established lines, but islands on different lines may have no direct connection at all. Two islands in a week, three at most.
The Philippines. Ferries, bangka boats and a lot of domestic flights. Distances are large and schedules are approximate.
Croatia. Catamarans from Split and Dubrovnik, and the most rewarding sailing chain in Europe.
The Caribbean best islands in the world. Poorly connected except within the Grenadines and the French Antilles. Inter-island flights are frequently the only option and they are expensive.
The Balearics. Frequent ferries between Mallorca, Menorca and Ibiza, and a fast crossing from the mainland.
The Azores. Inter-island flights and seasonal ferries in the central group.
Indonesia. Everything from fast boats to multi-day liveaboards. Distances between Bali, Flores and Raja Ampat are continental.
The universal rules. Every hop costs half a day once you count checkout, port time and the crossing. Adjacent islands are frequently on different routes. Never book a crossing on the day of an international flight. And schedules thin dramatically outside the high season everywhere on the list of best islands in the world.
Best Islands in the World: Frequently Asked Questions
What are the best islands in the world? It depends entirely on what you want: Santorini and Madeira for landscape, the Maldives and Seychelles for beaches, Raja Ampat and Palau for diving, Sicily and Crete for food and history, and the Faroes and Chiloe for solitude.
Which island is the most beautiful? On raw landscape, Santorini’s caldera, Lofoten, Palawan’s karst and Bora Bora’s lagoon are the four most commonly named, and they are beautiful in four completely different ways.
Which of the best islands in the world are cheapest? Naxos, Palawan, Sri Lanka, Lombok, Sao Miguel and the Greek North Aegean.
Which are the most expensive? The Maldives, Bora Bora, Mustique and private-island Seychelles, where there is no cheaper option on the island.
Which of the best islands in the world is best for a honeymoon? Santorini for landscape and food, the Maldives and Bora Bora for water, the Seychelles for both.
Which of the best islands in the world is best for diving? Raja Ampat, then Palau, Sipadan, Bonaire and the Galapagos.
Which is best for families? Naxos, Mallorca, Sardinia, Jersey and Vancouver Island.
Which is best for walking? Madeira, La Palma, Reunion, Corsica and the Faroe Islands.
When should I visit the best islands in the world? Shoulder season everywhere: May to June and September to October in the Mediterranean, December to April in the Caribbean and Maldives, November to April for South-East Asia’s Andaman coast.
How many islands should I visit in one trip? Two in a week and three at most, because every crossing costs half a day.
Are the famous islands ruined? No. They are concentrated. On almost every one of the best islands in the world, the crowd occupies two locations for seven hours a day, and the rest of the island is empty.
Which of the best islands in the world should I start with? Santorini, Mallorca, Sicily or Bali, all of which are well connected, well provisioned and forgiving of a first attempt.
Start With the Caldera
We are a local operator running private tours and transfers in our own vehicles on Santorini, which appears on almost every list of the best islands in the world and is the one on this page we can actually show you ourselves.
Tell us your dates and we will handle this island properly: the caldera villages at the right hour, Akrotiri before the coaches, the wineries at five, and the port or the airport when it is time to move on to the next one.
Prices are per vehicle rather than per person, hotel pickup anywhere on the island is included, we guide in twelve languages, and an 80 EUR deposit confirms a date.
See the personalised tour, the private transfers, or contact us.
Every Village and Site on the Island
Any of these can be built into a private day. Each has its own page with what to see and how long to allow.
Caldera villages: Fira · Firostefani · Imerovigli · Oia · Finikia · Baxedes
Inland villages: Pyrgos · Megalochori · Emporio · Mesaria · Karterados · Vothonas · Vourvoulos · Exo Gonia · Mesa Gonia · Pigadia
Beaches: Perissa · Perivolos · Kamari · Vlychada · Monolithos · Red Beach · White Beach · Agios Georgios · Agia Paraskevi
Sites and landmarks: Akrotiri · Ancient Thira · Akrotiri Lighthouse · Nea Kameni · Palia Kameni · Thirasia · Athinios Port
All our tours: All Santorini tours · Full day tour · Sightseeing tour · Personalised tour · North part tour · Horse riding · South part tour · Sunset tour · Shore excursion · Caldera tour · Food experience · Wine tour · Historical tour · Small group tour
Planning and services: Famous sights tour · Private transfers · Transfers to Oia and Finikia · Transfers to other villages · Villages of Santorini · History of Santorini · Tours near you · Languages we guide in · Food and fun tours · Gay friendly tours · Our tour buses · Daily tours · Day tours · FAQ · Gallery · Tour photo gallery · About us · Contact · Blog
