Maldives

Forty minutes by seaplane north of Malé, the atoll drops from pale sand to navy water in a hundred metres. We send guests to two houses only: one with thirty villas and a marine biologist on staff, one with nine suites and no music anywhere after nine in the evening.

The days organise themselves around water. A reef walk at low tide with the biologist, a dhoni to a sandbank that disappears by noon, dinner on the beach with your feet in the sand and a single lamp. We do not book the resort that fills every hour; there is nothing here to schedule.