The Exumas

More than 300 islands and cays scattered across the central Bahamas, the Exumas are renowned for blissfully isolated beaches, world-class diving, and serene resorts that effortlessly dissolve anyone's troubles away. There's Great Exuma and Little Exuma, wonderful in their own right, and then there's the stunning Exuma Cays: a string of mostly uninhabited ocean outposts surrounded by blooming reefs and astonishing ecological bounty. The jewel in that crown is the Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park, a huge expanse of islands, water and reef founded as the world's first land-and-sea reserve in 1958.