North Island

Eleven villas, a helicopter for a front door and a royal honeymoon in the guest book, which is not even the most private thing about it.

The geometry is friendlier than the door policy. The line we searched: Emirates leaves Heathrow at 14:25, the connection happens in Dubai while the city sleeps, and Mahé appears at ten to seven, before the heat. At nine Zil Air lifts you past Silhouette: fifteen minutes of channel water, then the only arrivals lawn in the archipelago.

Fifteen hours and fifty minutes end to end. The helicopter is the only fifteen-minute flight we know that removes you from the reachable world entirely.