BORA BORA

It could be enough to linger in the enticing overwater bungalows of these famed French Polynesian islands, but the greater beauty lies beyond: in the mountains, amid the islets, and beneath the shimmering waters

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Bora Bora: It's hard to imagine a place more packed with postcard-framed, honeymoon-forward, bucket list crowning promise. You might not be able to pick out the French Polynesian idyll on a map (hint: The target-shaped collection of coral reefs and islands lies some 2,500 miles due south of Hawai'i at about the latitude of southern Peru), but if someone offered you a vacation here, you'd pack your bags for paradise.

You wouldn't be wrong.

The remnant of an ancient volcano bursting forth from the sea some 7 million years ago, Bora Bora's modern landscape is a watercolor of contrast. The jagged remnant of that volcano, Mt. Otemanu, rises craggily for more than 2,300 feet above the main island at the center of the target like a crooked, beckoning finger. The reefs that encircle that ancient core keep the sea at bay, creating an aquamarine ribbon of shallow, serene lagoon abundant with fish and corals. Along the fringe, necklace-like islets of lime and white sand called motus provide enough purchase for stands of palm-dabs of emerald green in a landscape so painterly, it's no wonder artists have arrived and abandoned ship for centuries. Finally, a series of resorts feature slender, graceful piers levitating over the shallows and lined with low-lying, thatched-roof bungalows. Those are the famed overwater bungalows of this watery corner of the world, and they've become as iconic, seemingly, as the landscape.

For many visitors here, that bungalow vision, such as the one I stepped into at