Bora Bora, French Polynesia

Mount Otemanu, an extinct volcanic peak rising straight out of the lagoon, is the view every Bora Bora photo is built around, and it's visible from most of the island's overwater bungalow resorts — a style of accommodation that was popularized here before spreading to Fiji, the Maldives, and elsewhere.

Getting there is more straightforward than the remote feel suggests: United flies nonstop from San Francisco to Papeete in about eight hours, followed by a fifty-minute Air Tahiti domestic flight to Bora Bora itself — genuinely simpler routing than either Fiji or the Maldives.

May through October is French Polynesia's dry season and the window nearly every honeymoon and anniversary trip here is booked into; November through April brings both rain and the Pacific cyclone season. Bora Bora's resorts sit at the top of the price range on this list, reflecting both the setting and the remoteness.

Bora Bora's lagoon, ringed by a coral reef and a single extinct volcano at its center, is what overwater bungalow photography is built around, and the water clarity genuinely matches the marketing. The island itself is small enough to circle by bike in a couple of hours, and most activity beyond the resort centers on the lagoon — snorkeling, outrigger canoeing, and boat trips to swim with reef sharks and rays in the shallows.

Five to seven nights, reflecting both the cost and flight distance involved. It suits honeymooners specifically above most other traveler types, and the overwater bungalow experience it's known for typically requires booking well in advance during peak wedding and anniversary seasons.

Getting there: About 8h nonstop to Papeete (United, from San Francisco), then a 50-minute domestic flight to Bora Bora. Since Bora Bora, French Polynesia is best visited May to October (dry season), we build the itinerary around that window rather than treating the flight search and the calendar as separate decisions.

Bora Bora's central peak, Mount Otemanu, is the eroded remnant of an extinct volcano that formed the island several million years ago, and the surrounding barrier reef and turquoise lagoon — the feature that defines every photo of the island — is the geological product of that same volcanic collapse, a process that eventually produces a classic atoll as the original island fully submerges. The overwater bungalow, now synonymous with luxury travel worldwide, was reportedly invented here (or on a neighboring Tahitian island, accounts vary) in 1967 by a small group of American hoteliers, making Bora Bora arguably the birthplace of a hotel concept it's now most associated with globally. The island holds real strategic history too: the US military built an airstrip and naval base on Bora Bora during World War II as a supply link, and remnants including coastal gun emplacements are still visible and hikeable today, a detail overwhelmingly absent from the island's honeymoon marketing. French Polynesian culture is Polynesian first, French second — Tahitian, not French, remains the language of daily life and ceremony in many communities, and traditional practices like tattooing (the English word 'tattoo' itself derives from the Tahitian 'tatau') and outrigger canoe racing remain genuinely practiced rather than performed solely for visitors. Local cuisine centers on poisson cru, raw fish marinated in lime and coconut milk, the Polynesian counterpart to ceviche or kokoda.