The Cocos Islands: a remote Indian Ocean paradise

This tropical haven is far from a tourist hotspot but is 'truly idyllic'

Cocos Islands
The Cocos Islands are a 'world of tides and sun'
(Image credit: Mlenny / Getty Images)

Few tropical archipelagos are quite as beautiful, remote and appealingly quirky as the Cocos Islands, said Ruaridh Nicoll in the Financial Times (FT). 

Isolated in the Indian Ocean 660 miles south of Indonesia – but governed from Australia, 1,720 miles to their southeast – they are an "all but mythical world of tides and sun", surrounded by glorious coral reefs. They are a joyous place for lovers of the sea, but they also have a strange history, and are home to an "idiosyncratic" and tight-knit community of some 593 people who "make a point of drawing in visitors". 

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