The 20 Most Beautiful Islands in the World

Land ringed by water, each one its own small world. These islands span turquoise lagoons, living reefs, and volcanic wilds — chosen for the nature that surrounds them, not the resorts. Every entry links to how to get there and when to go.

Aldabra Atoll

Outer Islands, Seychelles

One of the world's largest raised coral atolls and among the least disturbed places on Earth — home to some 100,000 giant tortoises, far more than the Galápagos.

Island Africa

Bora Bora

Society Islands, French Polynesia

The archetypal South Pacific paradise — a jagged volcanic peak ringed by a luminous turquoise lagoon and a protective coral reef, encircled by palm-fringed islets of white sand.

Island Oceania

Faroe Islands

North Atlantic (between Iceland and Norway)

A cluster of green, wind-scoured islands rising in sheer sea cliffs from the wild North Atlantic — grass-roofed villages, cascading waterfalls, and a lake that seems to hang above the ocean.

Island Europe

Isle of Skye

Inner Hebrides, Scotland

A wild Hebridean island of jagged black peaks, mist-wrapped pinnacles, and sea cliffs — the most dramatic scenery in Scotland, stitched with waterfalls, lochs, and ancient rock.

Island Europe

The Galápagos Islands

Pacific Ocean, ~1,000 km west of Ecuador

A remote volcanic archipelago where evolution is on open display — giant tortoises, marine iguanas, and fearless wildlife found nowhere else, the living laboratory that shaped Darwin's theory of natural selection.

Island Latin America

Batanes

Batanes, northernmost Philippines

The country's northernmost islands — rolling emerald hills that meet the sea in dramatic cliffs, stone villages built to withstand typhoons, and a windswept beauty utterly unlike the tropical lowlands.

Island Southeast Asia

Camiguin & White Island

Camiguin, Northern Mindanao

A small volcanic island 'born of fire and water' — home to more volcanoes per square kilometre than anywhere in the country, ringed by hot and cold springs, waterfalls, and the bare white sandbar of White Island offshore.

Island Southeast Asia

Caramoan Islands

Caramoan, Camarines Sur, Bicol, Philippines

A remote Bicol peninsula where jagged limestone islets, hidden lagoons, and pocket white-sand beaches crowd a warm, reef-fringed sea — an El Nido–like seascape on the Pacific side of Luzon.

Island Southeast Asia

Hormuz Island

Strait of Hormuz, Persian Gulf, southern Iran

A small 'rainbow island' in the Strait of Hormuz where salt-dome geology paints the hills and beaches in red, ochre, and a spectrum of mineral colours — including sand you can taste.

Island Middle East

Hundred Islands

Alaminos, Pangasinan, Philippines

A scatter of 124 small, mushroom-shaped limestone islands in the Lingayen Gulf — ancient coral reef, uplifted and undercut by the sea into rounded green-capped islets you can hop between by boat.

Island Southeast Asia

Kalanggaman Island

Palompon, Leyte, Eastern Visayas

A slender, uninhabited coral island in the Camotes Sea famous for its long, curving white sandbar that trails off both ends into clear turquoise shallows — a near-perfect desert island.

Island Southeast Asia

Koh Rong

Gulf of Thailand, off Sihanoukville, Cambodia

A jungle-cloaked island off Cambodia's coast ringed by long white-sand beaches and clear turquoise water — and famous for seas that glow blue with bioluminescent plankton at night.

Island Southeast Asia

Lofoten Islands

Nordland, Arctic Norway

A chain of dramatic Arctic islands where jagged granite peaks rise straight from the sea above white beaches and red fishing villages — improbably mild for its latitude, and lit by the midnight sun and the northern lights.

Island Europe

Palaui Island

Santa Ana, Cagayan, Northern Luzon

A wild, protected island off the northeastern tip of Luzon — rolling green headlands, empty beaches, and a Spanish-era lighthouse on the dramatic Cape Engaño cliffs above the meeting of two seas.

Island Southeast Asia

Siargao & Sugba Lagoon

Surigao del Norte, Mindanao, Philippines

A tear-drop island of surf, palm forest, and mangrove — home to the famous Cloud 9 reef break, the glassy Sugba Lagoon, tidal rock pools, and one of the largest mangrove reserves in the country.

Island Southeast Asia

Siquijor

Siquijor, Central Visayas, Philippines

A small, spellbinding island of clear-water coves, waterfalls that spill into turquoise pools, and coral sanctuaries just off the sand — long wrapped in Philippine folklore as the island of healers and enchantment.

Island Southeast Asia

Socotra

Socotra Archipelago, Arabian Sea, Yemen

An isolated Indian Ocean island of such strange, ancient life that it's been called the 'Galápagos of the Indian Ocean' — home to umbrella-shaped dragon's blood trees and hundreds of plants found nowhere else on Earth.

Island Middle East

The Azores

Azores archipelago, Atlantic Ocean

A remote archipelago of green volcanic islands rising from the mid-Atlantic — crater lakes, hot springs, hydrangea-lined roads, and some of the best whale watching on Earth.

Island Europe

The Farasan Islands

Red Sea, off Jazan, southwestern Saudi Arabia

A low, coral-fringed archipelago in the southern Red Sea — turquoise shallows, mangroves, and reefs that shelter dugongs, nesting seabirds, and a gazelle found nowhere else.

Island Middle East

The Maldives Atolls

Indian Ocean, southwest of Sri Lanka

A double chain of coral atolls scattered across the Indian Ocean — nearly 1,200 low-lying islands ringed by turquoise lagoons and vibrant reefs, and the lowest-lying nation on Earth.

Island South Asia