The Best Hotels and Resorts in the World: 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."