England
Scilly Isles
Sub-tropical islands where palm trees grow wild twenty-eight miles from the English mainland.
Palm trees grow between granite boulders on islands where the Gulf Stream keeps frost at bay and the light turns the sea a shade of turquoise that belongs to the Caribbean, not Cornwall. The Scilly Isles sit twenty-eight miles off Land's End — five inhabited islands and over a hundred uninhabited rocks where the English mainland feels like a distant concept.
The Isles of Scilly support a permanent population of around 2,200 across five inhabited islands: St Mary's, Tresco, St Martin's, Bryher, and St Agnes. Tresco Abbey Garden, planted in the ruins of a Benedictine priory, contains over 20,000 plants from 80 countries, thriving in a microclimate that rarely drops below 5°C. The inter-island boat network connects all five islands, with services dependent on tide and weather. The waters around Scilly, designated a Marine Conservation Zone, are among the clearest in Britain, with visibility exceeding 20 metres. Shipwrecks litter the seabed — over 900 recorded — including the 1707 wreck of Sir Cloudesley Shovell's flagship HMS Association. The Skybus flight from Land's End takes 15 minutes; the Scillonian III ferry from Penzance takes two hours and 45 minutes.
Couple
Island-hop by boat, swim in water that defies its latitude, and eat crab on St Agnes at the southernmost pub in England. Scilly compresses escape into an archipelago small enough to know in a week.
Family
The boat trips between islands turn every day into an expedition. Rock-pooling, snorkelling in clear water, and the freedom of car-free islands give children the kind of holiday that creates lifelong memories.
Solo
Walk the coastal paths of Bryher alone, where the Atlantic breaks against granite and the only sounds are seabirds and surf. Scilly offers solitude that the mainland forgot how to provide.
- The helicopter or boat from Penzance crosses 28 miles of Atlantic to reach islands where palm trees grow and cars are almost nonexistent.
- Inter-island boat trips between Tresco, Bryher, and St Martin's run on tide and weather — the schedule bends to nature, not the other way.
- Tresco Abbey Garden grows subtropical plants from 80 countries in the ruins of a Benedictine priory — microclimates within microclimates.
- The beaches are white sand with water so clear you can count the fish — but the Atlantic temperature reminds you this is still England.
Crab picked straight from the pot at the Turk's Head on St Agnes — the southernmost pub in England.
Tresco Abbey Garden cafe serving salads with island-grown subtropical produce.
Witless Bay
Canada
Eleven million puffins waddle across sea stacks close enough to smell the fish on their breath.
Esteros del Iberá
Argentina
Caiman drift among giant lily pads in a freshwater marsh where time itself pools and stills.
Lake Chala
Tanzania
A turquoise crater lake on Kilimanjaro's flank, fed by underground springs nobody can fully trace.
Munroe Island
India
A sinking backwater island navigated by silent dugout canoes through arched and claustrophobic mangrove tunnels.
Grasmere
England
Wordsworth's lake enclosed by fells where the gingerbread recipe is kept in a bank vault.
Buttermere
England
A mirror lake ringed by fells so symmetrical the reflection is indistinguishable from the real.
Arnside Knott and Silverdale
England
Rare butterflies float above limestone pavement where quicksand lurks on the shore below.
The New Forest
England
Wild ponies drift through ancient woodland where Norman kings once hunted deer.