Visit a sandbank in the Maldives

Wake over a turquoise lagoon with steps down into the reef — the Maldives invented the overwater villa.

Postcard sandbar in Aitutaki lagoon.

Seven kilometres of pure white silica sand in the Whitsundays, swirling into the turquoise Hill Inlet.

The classic aerial view of ring reefs and lagoons scattered across the Indian Ocean.

Plankton light the surf electric blue on Vaadhoo and other islands on dark nights.

White dune fields that fill with turquoise rain lagoons every wet season.

The largest sand island on Earth — rainforest, dingoes and the freshwater Lake McKenzie.

Three miles of naturally pink sand and a pastel village of golf carts and loyalist cottages, just off Eleuthera.