Laucala Island Resort

Laucala operates on a different logic from almost any resort on earth. The 3,000-acre island in Fiji's northeast—once owned by publisher Malcolm Forbes, later transformed by Red Bull co-founder Dietrich Mateschitz—hosts just 25 villas, and nearly everything a guest touches originates on the island itself. Farms, orchards, a cattle herd and fishing boats supply the kitchens; the philosophy of self-sufficiency runs so deep the island produces its own chocolate and vanilla.

The villas are compounds rather than rooms: thatched residences of local timber and stone spread along beaches, hillsides and a seagrass-fringed point, each with its own pool, gardens and staff. Inclusions extend far beyond meals to horse riding on the beach, diving Fiji's celebrated soft-coral reefs, deep-sea fishing, and an 18-hole championship golf course cut through coconut plantation—with even the resort's submarine excursion available for a supplement.

Dining moves between plantation-house, beach and hilltop venues, all fuelled by the farm, and the spa occupies its own garden village. Laucala's rates are famously among the world's highest, and its remoteness is real. But as an expression of what a private island can be when cost is no constraint, it stands effectively alone in the Pacific.