Aruba

Aruba hit differently from the moment I landed. The trade winds are constant — you feel them the second you step outside — and the sky is this deep, almost electric blue that I kept trying to photograph but could never quite capture. Eagle Beach with its famous divi-divi tree was the first thing I wanted to see, and standing there with the powdery white sand and that bent, wind-sculpted tree framing the turquoise water, I understood why people come back to this island year after year.

We rented ATVs and rode out to the California Lighthouse on the northwest tip — the terrain out there is dry, rocky, completely different from the resort strip. The lighthouse is bleached white against a hard blue sky and the wind at the top is strong enough to knock you sideways. Downtown Oranjestad has this Dutch colonial architecture painted in pinks and yellows that looks almost theatrical, and the Royal Plaza building is the kind of thing you photograph just because you can't believe it's real. Renaissance Island was another world — a private beach where flamingos just wade around in the shallows like it's nothing.

Nights in Aruba go late. We found a rooftop bar in Oranjestad where a cruise ship sat lit up in the harbour like a floating hotel, and the warm air smelled like the sea. The food was good too — proper Caribbean plates, slow-cooked meat with rice and beans, nothing rushed. Aruba doesn't ask you to do much, and that's the point.