Cook Islands

Fifteen islands scattered across an oceanic area the size of Western Europe, the Cook Islands hold a permanent population smaller than a London suburb. The country runs on a building-height rule (nothing taller than a coconut palm), a marine reserve that covers nearly two million square kilometres, and a self-governance arrangement with New Zealand that is more interesting in practice than it sounds on paper — Cook Islanders carry New Zealand passports but make every decision that matters about the islands themselves.

Rarotonga is where most trips begin and where most stay. It is small enough to circumnavigate by scooter in an afternoon, and the inland trail across the island — Cross Island Track, with the volcanic plug of Te Rua Manga halfway across — is the kind of two-hour walk that resets your sense of what a tropical island actually is. Aitutaki, an hour's flight north, is the lagoon people come for: a triangular reef holding a sheet of water so shallow you can wade between motus, and the country's most considered properties (Aitutaki Lagoon Private Island Resort, Pacific Resort).

The food economy here is small and the better restaurants are honest about it — what's local and what arrived by container ship gets called out on the menu in most cases. Eat at Te Vara Nui, drink at the Wigmore's Superstore checkout queue if you want the village version of the same evening, and try ika mata (raw tuna in coconut cream) the way the older generation makes it, which is barely the same dish as the resort interpretation.

The dry season is long here — April through November — and the trade winds make even the warmer months pleasant. December and January bring genuine cyclone risk; the country's tourism authority has begun publishing storm-track historical data, which is the level of transparency we recommend looking for everywhere in the Pacific.