The Best Hotels and Resorts in Australia and Oceania: The Gold List 2024

"My husband was still my boyfriend when we went to Kokomo Private Island, a villa-only resort on a lush and hilly speck of land in the bright, clear, reef-strewn waters of the Fijian archipelago. Often when we talk about the trip, we tell the story of how, when we turned up at the activity center to pick up snorkels and flippers, we were asked to rate ourselves as expert, intermediate, or poor swimmers. “Poor!” Tim said with enthusiasm, startling the hotel’s staff (and us) into gales of laughter. Fiji’s much-celebrated friendliness makes it easy to relax and be yourself—which, in Tim’s case, is a landlubber. Luckily there is something for everybody at Kokomo. While I ventured out with a resident marine biologist to swim with manta rays, Tim was happy to linger over a morning latte and an açaí bowl on the deck of the resort’s tropically elegant main restaurant. Afterward, we’d lounge around our more than 1,200-square-foot beachfront villa, read by the private pool, or snooze in a hammock strung between palms. Our agendas converged right around happy hour, when our biggest struggle was choosing among idyllic spots to enjoy an umbrella-adorned sundowner with an ocean view. There were the chaises on our villa’s patio, of course, or there was Walker d’Plank, named for Kokomo’s owner, the Australian real estate billionaire Lang Walker: a casual Asian fusion restaurant helmed by Fijian chef Caroline Oakley and set on a series of ascending platforms overlooking rocky shallows and a vast Pacific sky tie-dyed coral and orange. There, amid the paradise vibes, a couple of pineapple and basil mojitos might naturally lead to a meal of wahoo tataki, pork dumplings, and prawn curry enlivened with peppers and herbs grown in Kokomo’s on-site 5.5-acre organic farm. All of it—the delicious food, the manicured grounds, the tranquil spa, the choice between doing as much or as little as one pleases—is, of course, the product of careful consideration and constant labor. But one of Kokomo’s gifts to its guests is an unpunctured sense of ease and effortlessness. What a feat of hospitality that is, to be made to feel like everything is all right and that there are truly no worries, no matter how bad a swimmer one happens to be. From $2,200. —Maggie Shipstead" - CNT Editors