Herdla — Askøy, Norway
A private Norwegian island where the rooms sit at the water's edge.
Reached only by a short boat crossing from the mainland, this four-room island hotel has no real neighbors and no cars, just rocky North Sea shoreline a few steps from the door. One of the four rooms is a free-standing building at the water's edge, with floor-to-ceiling windows onto the sea and the water close enough to swim from its own doorstep. Guests swim, snorkel, and sauna-plunge directly off the island, in water described as cold, clear, and largely untouched. It's a wilder, more elemental kind of swim access than anywhere else on this list. Bracing rather than balmy.
