The island where life really is a beach

David Kernek can understand why holidaymakers fall in love with Formentera and return year after year

You’ll never guess who I saw in Ibiza Town. It was that Peter Stringfellow fellow, the man who brought table-dancing clubs to Britain, wearing one of his frightening shirts and strolling by the port’s cafés with a young lady on his deeply bronzed arm. Just as well, then, that we were on our way to a sunshine break not in Ibiza’s club zone but on Formentera, a tiny island just a few miles but a world away.

My introduction to the island was a beach-bar dinner party thrown by John Astbury of Astbury Formentera to celebrate his holiday company’s silver anniversary. After a career in the army, John discovered Ibiza in the 1970s, but looked elsewhere when it was also discovered a little later on by the package tour industry. He took the 30-minute boat ride to Formentera and, while commuting to and from a home in England, has never really left.

Building up a portfolio of self-catering beachside studios, apartments and villas – his is the only British rental company specialising in Formentera – he’s spent 25 years helping holidaymakers to share his love affair with the island. For many, it’s an enduring passion; they return again and again.

The island has seen changes during the past quarter of a century, but they haven’t altered its low-key, relaxed character. There are no high-rise hotels, and there isn’t anything resembling an Ibiza-like club scene; our late-night search for music and dance – music, at least, that people over 40 could dance to – wasn’t successful.

Formentera’s quiet, relaxed atmosphere with a gentle hippy undertone (they came here in the 1960s and many stayed) is a major attraction, but the big draw is this little island’s magnificent beaches. There are miles and miles of them, all unspoiled and protected from development; the entire coastal strip is an official nature reserve.

The longest and widest beach – Platja Migjorn – stretches for almost five golden miles along the island’s southern coast from Cap de Barbaria to La Mola. It’s also the best, but it’s rarely if ever crowded.

While strict planning controls protect the fauna and flora (including Marram grass, Phoenician juniper and slightly larger-than-normal sand lizards) that thrive on the dunes, you’re never too far from a discreetly sited restaurant or beach bar for lunch, dinner or, with an early evening cocktail, to simply watch spectacular sunsets.