Greece
Arki
Forty-four islanders, a handful of quayside tavernas, and Tiganakia's improbable blues beyond.
The ferry pulls alongside a concrete quay barely wider than the boat, and a handful of whitewashed buildings look back at you — this is the whole town. A few dozen people live here, and the harbour's three or four tavernas double as the guesthouses.
Arki is a low island of forty-odd people, its harbour settlement doubling as the guesthouse quarter — three or four tavernas with rooms above the quay. Paths cross the scrubline to small beaches and viewpoints, and boats run to Tiganakia, where shallow channels between islets turn an improbable blue. Dodekanisos Seaways calls seasonally via Patmos and Lipsi; check the schedule, then stop checking things.
Solo
A small-island stay built around ferry rhythms, harbour life and walks rather than a manufactured survival story.
Couple
Tiganakia’s blue channels, fresh fish at the harbour and an evening when the day boats have gone.
- Tiganakia's channels are the postcard — sand-floored shallows in cartoon turquoise.
- The tavernas are the guesthouses are the social calendar.
- Paths cross the whole island in an afternoon, coves included.
- The ferry timetable is the only schedule that survives arrival.
Grilled fish landed by Arki's own small fleet, served at the quayside tavernas.
Slow-cooked goat with potatoes when it reaches the handwritten menu.
Jinack Island
Gambia
A sand island split by an invisible border: Gambia at one end, Senegal at the other.
Yelapa
Mexico
A green bay hides a village where pies come down to the beach before noon.
Nui
Tuvalu
A Micronesian island wrapped inside a Polynesian nation: Nui's mother tongue is Gilbertese.
Reef Islands
Solomon Islands
A six-guest lodge on one island, and reef in every direction from it.
Prespa Lakes
Greece
Byzantine hermitages painted on cave walls above a lake shared by three countries.
Milia
Greece
An abandoned Cretan hamlet rebuilt from stone into an off-grid eco-settlement deep in chestnut forest.
Nafplio
Greece
Stone steps climb to a Venetian sea fortress above a harbour of bobbing fishing caïques.
Mystras
Greece
A Byzantine ghost city of frescoed churches crumbling down a hillside above the Spartan plain.