Ten island hideaways built for two

The best romantic islands share a quality that resists marketing: they're slightly inconvenient. A ferry is required, sometimes two, and that extra effort acts as a filter — what's left behind is quiet harbours, unhurried tavernas and evenings that answer to nothing but the light. None of the ten below has a runway worth mentioning, and several ban cars altogether. Pack less than you think, accept the ferry timetable as a lifestyle, and let the smallness do its work.

No cars, no scooters — just donkeys, water taxis and a stone amphitheatre of sea captains' mansions around one perfect harbour. Hydra has seduced everyone from Leonard Cohen to half the art world, and two hours by hydrofoil from Athens it earns the devotion. Walk the coastal path to Vlychos for a swim and a taverna lunch, and stay over: the island exhales once the day boats leave at five.

Santorini's shy neighbour: a whitewashed clifftop chora strung between three squares shaded by bougainvillea, with sunset views to rival anything on the caldera and a fraction of the audience. Climb the zigzag path to the Panagia church at dusk — the whole island turns out for it — then eat matsata pasta under the trees. June and September are perfect; there is mercifully little to do here except this.

Malta's smaller, greener sister moves at half the pace of the main island: honey-stone farmhouses, salt pans, a citadel rising from the middle of everything. Convert a farmhouse stay into your base — most come with private pools — and swim in the inland sea at Dwejra. The twenty-five-minute ferry ride keeps crowds modest even in August, but spring, when the island is briefly emerald, is Gozo's finest hour.

Capri's less vain neighbour in the Bay of Naples: thermal springs, a castle on its own islet and gardens that tumble to the sea. Elena Ferrante set her lovers' summers here for good reason. Soak together in the terraced pools at Negombo, eat rabbit all'ischitana in a hillside trattoria, and stay in Sant'Angelo — the pedestrianised fishing village on the south coast — rather than the busier ferry ports.

The furthest inhabited island from the Croatian coast, closed to foreigners as a military base until 1989 and still blissfully behind the times. Mamma Mia 2 was filmed here, but Vis remains more fishing net than film set. Stay in Komiža, take a boat to the glowing Blue Cave on neighbouring Biševo early to beat the queue, and eat lobster at a konoba where the day's catch decides the menu.

A car-free island off the Riviera coast that France has largely kept to itself: pine forests, vineyards, and beaches — Notre Dame chief among them — with Caribbean-clear water. Everyone cycles; hire bikes at the port and pack a picnic from the village square market. Come in June or September, when the day-tripper numbers halve, and stay overnight to have the evening village and its pétanque court to yourselves.

Twenty-eight miles off Cornwall, a scatter of islands with white-sand bays, subtropical gardens and a pace set entirely by tides and boat timetables. Base yourselves on Tresco or quieter St Agnes, walk between empty beaches, and eat crab sandwiches with your feet in the sand. The Scillonian ferry crossing can be lively — book the Skybus from Land's End instead and arrive in fifteen scenic minutes.

The Bay of Naples' smallest island got its close-up as Italy's Capital of Culture in 2022 — and in The Talented Mr Ripley before that — yet stays defiantly local. Marina Corricella, a heap of fishermen's houses in faded pinks and yellows around a netted harbour, is one of the Mediterranean's great views. Stay near the harbour, eat lemon salad and just-landed anchovies, and visit in May before the Neapolitan summer crowd arrives by hydrofoil.

Ibiza's little sister has no airport, which keeps it honest: turquoise shallows at Ses Illetes that pass convincingly for the Caribbean, salt flats, and beach restaurants where lunch outlasts the afternoon. Everyone gets around by scooter or bicycle along flat, rosemary-scented lanes. Come in June or late September when the Italian August crowd is elsewhere, and stay overnight for the evening emptying — the beaches at 7pm are yours, gin and tonic included.

No cars, no streetlights and officially the world's first Dark Sky Island — Sark runs on bicycles, tractors and tides. Cross the vertiginous La Coupée causeway to Little Sark, swim in the Venus Pool at low tide, and spend the evenings under a Milky Way most city couples have never actually seen. Ferries run from Guernsey in under an hour. Book a night at the Stocks Hotel in autumn, when the stargazing is at its best.