How to get there

Chartered or scheduled flight to Ibiza, followed by a 30-minute crossing from Ibiza town to Formentera’s port, La Savina.

Getting around

Explore the 31-square mile island and discover its beaches with a rented car, motorbike or cycle… or walk.

The naked truth

Most of the island’s beaches are clothing-optional; keep it on or take as much as you want off – which makes them especially popular with German and Austrian visitors.

Best shopping

Sant Francesc is the island’s busy capital village, and the place for buying upmarket gifts. There’s a morning market every day during the summer months. The twice-weekly ‘hippy’ market at Pilar de la Mola, Formentera’s highest point, also draws the crowds.

Best views

Formentera is largely flat and low-lying – you’ll see salt pans in the north – but its main highway takes you south and up to a high plateau. Have lunch or dinner at the Mirador restaurant and feast on spectacular views of the island stretched out below, and then drive on to La Mola and the clifftop lighthouse at the end of the road. The scene here – sunsets to die for, the cliffs falling almost 400ft into the Med – is believed to have inspired Jules Verne’s The Lighthouse At The End Of The World.

Best beach bars

I can recommend the Tiburón on Platja de ses Illetes – rattan chairs, great music, perfect cocktails and a sizzling view of Ibiza’s mesmerizing rocks, Es Vedra, in the distance. On Platja Migjorn, find Piratabus, a beachside shack serving cold beer and wine to a soundtrack of Bob Marley and Eric Clapton. It’s a short walk across the white sand from Flipper and Chiller, a sugar-pink and bright green restaurant/bar owned and run by a trio comprising Spanish porn star Nacho Vidal, his artist sister and one of Barcelona’s top restaurateurs, Cal Pinxo.