Panama
Isla Contadora
A Pearl Island of quiet coves where Iran's exiled Shah was hidden from the world.
The plane tilts over turquoise shallows and puts down on the island's small airstrip. Contadora wears its polish lightly: lanes without traffic, coves between the villas, and a strange chapter of the twentieth century folded into the quiet.
In December 1979 the Carter administration arranged for the deposed Shah of Iran to be sent here, and for three months the world's most unwanted man lived on this small Pacific island, kept isolated under General Torrijos's watch until Egypt renewed its offer of asylum and he left in March 1980. The island he left behind is the easiest doorway into Las Perlas: the archipelago's main island, with more than ten beaches around one compact, walkable frame, calm water on the sheltered side and Pacific light everywhere. Ferries and light planes connect it to Panama City, uninhabited islands wait a short boat-hop away, and from July to October humpback whales move through the surrounding channels to breed.
Couple
More than ten beaches on one walkable island means an empty cove before lunch, and history strange enough to argue about over dinner.
Family
The short ferry or flight keeps the logistics gentle, and the calm water on the island's sheltered side keeps the sea that way too.
- The Carter administration sent the deposed Shah of Iran here on 15 December 1979; he stayed, closely guarded, until leaving for Egypt in March 1980.
- Contadora is the main island of Las Perlas, with more than ten beaches on one small, walkable frame.
- Humpbacks visit the surrounding waters from July to October, the archipelago's breeding season.
- Ferries and light planes link the island to Panama City, making it the archipelago's easiest doorway.
Ceviche is the island's default order, fish or mixed, eaten with sand still on your feet.
Casa Tortuga cooks Italian at heart but lets the day's catch steer the specials.
Paxos
Greece
Sea caves large enough for a sailboat glow electric blue beneath sheer white limestone cliffs.
Oualidia
Morocco
A saltwater lagoon where oyster beds gleam at low tide and flamingos wade.
Lambert's Bay
South Africa
Thousands of Cape gannets crowd an island reached on foot from a fishing harbour.
Antiparos
Greece
A cave so vast that the Marquis de Nointel held Christmas Mass inside it in 1673.
Portobelo
Panama
Rusting cannons guard the harbour where Spanish galleons loaded Potosí's silver for Spain.
El Valle de Antón
Panama
A whole town spreads across the floor of an extinct volcano's crater.
Punta Patiño
Panama
Harpy eagles with the largest talons of any living eagle nest in this Darién reserve.
Islas Secas
Panama
Fourteen volcanic islands, thirteen still wild, twenty miles out in whale-crossed Pacific water.