andBeyond Mnemba Island

Mnemba is a small oval island off the north-eastern tip of Zanzibar, taken in its entirety by a single lodge of twelve bandas. With a maximum of twenty-four guests on the whole island, the arithmetic is unusual even by luxury standards, and it is possible to walk the beach without meeting anyone.

The bandas are woven palm and timber, set back among casuarina trees with private stretches of sand in front, deliberately rustic in materials and thoroughly considered in everything else. There are no schedules: meals happen where and when guests want them, and staff-to-guest ratios are high enough to make that workable.

The surrounding atoll is a protected marine conservation area, and the reef is the main event - diving and snorkelling directly off the island, with turtles nesting on the beaches and dolphins regularly in the channel. &Beyond has run long-term coral restoration and turtle protection programmes here, and a recent rebuild of the lodge was designed around reducing its footprint on a fragile site.