About 30km off Land’s End, there’s nowhere quite like them in the UK.  The warm winter climate and free-draining sandy soil supports a somewhat Mediterranean, even tropical flora of succulents and palm trees, beautifully demonstrated at the famous Tresco Abbey Gardens.  Each of the five inhabited islands have a subtly unique feel to them and between them support an economy of flower farming (Christmas daffodils being a specialty), lobster fishing, jewelry making, ice cream manufacture and wine making.  There are few roads and even fewer cars. Transport is by boat and if you are arriving with camping equipment, you all muck in and join a human chain to offload everyone’s luggage onto a nearby tractor that’ll take it to your campsite.  If you come again in subsequent years, and many people do, you will be stood next to the same people in this luggage chain and come to know them quite well.  Boats are obviously an important part of Scilly culture and inter-island Pilot Gig races occur every week throughout the summer.  There are literary connections too, with several of Michael Morpurgo’s books set here, and as part of the Duchy of Cornwall, it is a favourite holiday destination for the Prince of Wales and his family.