Our Recommendations
Houses where a long way there genuinely adds up.
Some addresses are deliberately far away. Two flights, a boat, one last transfer — and then a place that is what it is precisely because of that distance.
This selection names houses where the effort is not part of the marketing but the reason the quiet holds.
Why this recommendation exists
The most common disappointment is not the house but the ratio between getting there and staying. These places carry both — if you give them enough nights.
What this recommendation is not
Not suited to short trips. Under five nights, each of these houses loses part of what you came for.
The houses
01 — Nosy Ankao, Madagaskar
Fourteen villas on an island off northern Madagascar, reachable only by helicopter, with a marine conservation programme that the operation funds. The effort of arriving is part of what protects it.
Why this house
Nosy Ankao is reachable only by helicopter — and afterwards the archipelago belongs, in practice, to the house and its guests.
02 — Seychellen
A private island of eleven villas, cleared of introduced species and replanted over decades. You share it with giant tortoises and almost no one else.
Why this house
One island, eleven villas, a conservation project in the background. You do not go there to make excursions.
03 — Selinda, Botswana
Four tents in a concession of some 130,000 hectares — you share an area the size of a city with seven other guests. The Selinda Spillway draws elephant in numbers.
Why this house
The Selinda concession is vast and barely travelled — four tents, and game viewing that happens without other vehicles.
04 — Sumba, Indonesien
Horses on the sand, a well-known wave and an island barely developed for tourism.
Why this house
Sumba sits away from every Indonesian route. That is exactly why the island feels unworn and the house like a place of its own.
05 — Benguerra Island, Mosambik
Twelve free-standing residences across three hundred hectares of island, each with its own stretch of sand.
Why this house
Benguerra off Mozambique: wide sandbanks, little infrastructure, and a house that does not paper over the remoteness.
Pure Voyage Notes
How do you plan the journey there without losing the first day?
Almost always with a night in between. A day in Johannesburg, Nairobi, Antananarivo or Bali costs little and saves the first morning on arrival — particularly where bush flights carry weight limits and fixed departures. We build that night into the plan rather than adding it at the end.
Noted by Pure Voyage
Related destinations
Related journeys
Okavango Delta, Linyanti, Kalahari
West Papua, Indonesia
Continue through Pure Voyage
Not a catalogue, but a next step: the houses, routes, countries and essays we would mention at this point in a conversation.
Hotels
Addresses that belong beside this page.
Journeys
Routes that open up this region.
Destinations
The country at a glance.
Journal
Further reading before you decide.
An Invitation
One hotel that convinced us, with our advice on suite and season. The openings that actually matter. And a destination at its best right now. No offers, no advertising.
