Holbox, an island with no asphalt

Holbox lies across the Yalahau lagoon at the northern tip of Quintana Roo, inside the Yum Balam protected area, and getting there is part of what keeps it as it is: you drive or ride to the village of Chiquilá, leave the car behind, and take the ferry across in about twenty-five minutes. There are no paved roads on the island and almost no private cars. The streets are sand, transport is a golf cart or a bicycle, the village is a grid of a dozen or so blocks painted with murals, and the sea waits at the end of every one of them. The water is the shallow warm meeting of the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico: you can wade out a hundred metres and still be at your waist, and because the island faces north it usually escapes the sargassum that reaches the coast further south. Walk west along the sand to Punta Cocos for the sunset, or east to Punta Mosquito, where a sandbar surfaces at low tide and flamingos, pelicans and frigatebirds work the flats. Small boats run to Isla Pájaros for the birdlife and to the freshwater spring at Yalahau. Between June and September the plankton bloom offshore draws whale sharks, and licensed boats take small groups out to swim beside them under strict rules on numbers and distance. On dark nights, particularly around the summer new moon, the shallows light up with bioluminescent plankton when you move a hand through them. Eat fresh lobster and ceviche, drink at a table set directly on the sand, and expect the electricity and the phone signal to be less reliable than the sunsets. Bring repellent for dusk and cash for the day, and count on the island keeping you longer than you meant to stay.