Bali, Indonesia

Bali's reputation arrives before you do — and most of it is accurate. The rice terraces. The temples. The offering flowers on every threshold. What isn't always captured is how many different Balis exist within the one island. The Bukit Peninsula in the south is cliff, reef, and some of the most serious surf in Southeast Asia. Canggu, on the southwest coast, is the place the creative class moved to when it ran out of room in other cities — a neighbourhood of design studios, food projects, morning yoga sessions, and an energy that has been arriving for a decade and hasn't peaked yet. Ubud, an hour inland, is the Bali that existed before the surfers came: artists, healers, ceremonies, a spiritual culture that runs deep enough that the tourism hasn't diluted it. These are not three versions of the same trip. They are three different answers to what you want from an island.

The yoga scene is one of the most serious in the world outside of India — not because Bali manufactured one, but because the practitioners who needed somewhere to go found it before anyone was paying attention. Studios in Canggu run Mysore-programme Ashtanga from 6am. Ubud has teachers who have been practising for thirty years. The surf on the Bukit is world-class and uncompromising; the beach breaks at Canggu work across every level. Most trips here find their own shape: mornings in the water or on the mat, afternoons slow, evenings at a table somewhere that someone who knows the island recommended. The hotels in this collection are spread across the island because the right answer depends entirely on which Bali you came for.