Fiji

15 records and the widest price range in the register, from a lodge on a volcanic island to a private island let whole for a sum most countries have no market for. What holds them together is water: open Pacific with fringing reef rather than an enclosed lagoon, which makes the diving better and the swimming rougher than Polynesia.

The Lau group is the far end. Kaibu and Vatuvara sit an hour past Nadi by light aircraft, and the register records them as status unverified rather than pretending otherwise: properties this remote change hands, close and reopen under new names, and one of these has done all three.

Fiji is also where the family case is strongest. Turtle Island has run a children's programme since the 1980s, Jean-Michel Cousteau built a resort around one, and several of the small islands here take four to a room without a negotiation — which the Maldives, at the same price, frequently will not.

Weather is the honest caveat. The wet season runs November to April with real cyclone risk, and several properties in this country have been rebuilt after one.