Herm If peace and quiet are your main holiday criteria, head to tiny Herm in the Channel Islands. Cars and bicycles are forbidden, queues are non-existent and its unspoilt sandy beaches stay blissfully empty year round. It’s safe, sheltered and family-friendly. The most luxurious stay is to be had at the White House Hotel, which sits in lush, flower-filled grounds overlooking the harbour and its own private oyster bed.

Details The White House Hotel (01481 722159; www.herm-island.com ). Doubles from £170 a night B&B.

Isle of Portland This tiny comma of land off the Dorset coast has long been famous for its white limestone — used by Sir Christopher Wren to construct St Paul’s Cathedral. Dramatic white cliffs drop down from the hills into the sparkling waters of the English Channel, while, on the northern side, the golden sands of Chesil Beach curl back elegantly towards Weymouth. Stay at Queen Anne House B&B, a Grade II-listed early 18th-century cottage.

Details Queen Anne House (01305 820028; www.queen annehouse.com ). Doubles from £68 a night B&B.

10 outrageous places to stay in Britain

A remote tower on a Dorset clifftop plus other places to make it a memorable holiday

Related Links

• The 10 best family-friendly hostels in the British Isles

• Ten places to stay by a British beach

• Martin Clunes: why I love Britain's islands

Isle of Wight The Isle of Wight may be where Jimi Hendrix played his last official gig in Britain, in 1970, but it is still better known for yacht races and test tubes of coloured sand. The two-bedroom Shack is on a mission to change people’s perceptions. It might look like a 1950s Butlin’s chalet but its decor is up there with the most stylish urban hotels. There may be no electricity, but you won’t mind. Soak up the sea views till the sun goes down, then settle down inside beside the wood-burning stove.

Details The Shack (07802 758113; www.vintagevacations.co.uk ). From £410 a week.

Lundy Island Situated about 12 miles off the north Devon coast, at the point where the Bristol Channel widens to let in the Atlantic, Lundy Island is one of the UK’s last true wildernesses. There are very few people here, but plenty of wildlife — puffins come to breed on the granite cliffs, while the waters around its rocky shores teem with seals and sharks. There’s 23 Landmark Trust-operated properties to rent on the island — but for sheer drama try Tibbetts. There’s no electricity, you sleep in bunks and the nearest village is two miles away.

Details Tibbetts (01628 825925; www.landmarktrust.org.uk ). From £373 a week.

Monkey Island Monkey Island is a spit of land in the River Thames, close to Bray in Berkshire, that is fringed by willows and packed with dense woodland. The origins of its name have nothing to do with simians, but monkeys frolic in the frescoes of the 18th-century riverside pavilion. The Monkey Island Hotel is one of southern England’s best-kept secrets: a secluded, Jane Austen-era Palladian jewel. Rooms are comfortable, elegant and come with views of lush gardens or the languid river.

Details Monkey Island Hotel (01628 623400; www.monkeyisland.co.uk ). Doubles from £119 a night B&B.

Burgh Island In its 1930s heyday Burgh Island attracted people such as Winston Churchill and Noël Coward to its shrub-shrouded shores. The big draw then, as now, was the glorious Art Deco Burgh Island Hotel, which overlooks the golden sands that separate it from Devon. If it feels to you like the sort of place in which gin-soaked aristocrats might be quizzed by Hercule Poirot, then you’d be right — Agatha Christie, a regular visitor, set two of her novels there. Nowadays the hotel exudes a wonderfully faded sense of grandeur.

Details Burgh Island Hotel (01548 810514; www.burghisland.com ). Doubles from £385 a night,with breakfast and dinner.

Isle of Rona British islands don’t get much more remote than Rona, accessible only by boat from Portree on the adjacent Isle of Skye. Other than an affable gamekeeper, there are no people on the island, and any friends you make on this holiday are likely to be drawn from the animal kingdom — small herds of Highland cattle and red deer wander the verdant valleys and hills. The last residents were forced off the island in the 1920s — their crumbling “ghost” village lies just behind the Seascape and Skyescape houses.

Details Isle of Rona Cottages (07831 293963; www.isleofrona.com). Two-person cottages from £425 a week.

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