Miyakojima

The island's signature beach, about 7km of fine white sand with the Kurima Bridge stretched across the water ahead. The sea is so shallow you can wade a long way and stay waist-deep, and outfits at one end run jet skis and banana boats.

A 3,540m bridge joining Miyakojima to Irabu, opened in 2015 and the longest toll-free bridge in Japan. Its middle rises high to let ships pass, and cresting that hump you see the sea on both sides at once.

A cape running a thin 2km or so into the Pacific from the island's eastern tip, designated a national scenic site. A small fee lets you climb the lighthouse on its tip, and the wind is strong enough to take your hat.

A beach reached by climbing over a sand dune, with a wave-cut rock arch at one end. It is barely 10 minutes' drive from town, but coming back means slogging up the sand slope again, which is harder than it looks.

A 1,425m bridge, opened in 1992, carries you north to Ikema Island. The island takes 10 minutes to drive round, and the Yukishio salt works shop sits at the Miyako end of the bridge, so the two make one stop.

A lookout on the small island across the 1,690m Kurima Bridge, opened in 1995, framing Maehama beach and the bridge in one view. The observatory is a three-tier tower and costs nothing to climb.

The sea beyond the northern end of the Shimojishima airport runway, where the water over shallow coral sand is the brightest on these islands. When the tide drops, a sandbar surfaces for wading out to, and cars may only stop in marked spots on the runway road.

A pair of round ponds side by side on Shimoji's west coast, joined to the sea by underground caves so the water rises and falls with it. There is nothing but a fence and a path around them, and they are better known among divers for the cave system below.

A vast coral reef north of Ikema that shows above the water only on the few spring days with the lowest tides of the year. Tour boats drop you among the coral then, and with so few possible days, bookings fill early.

A swimming spot on the south coast where a narrow inlet has been closed off with a seawall, keeping out the open-sea waves. Coral and fish come into the shallows, good for snorkelling with children, and a footbridge over the rocks runs round the inlet.

An undersea observatory opened in 2011 by the shore north of Hirara. Stairs lead down to round windows with coral and reef fish drifting past at arm's length. Families come to watch the sea floor dry; on windy days the water clouds and the glass turns milky.

An east-coast beach passed on the drive toward Higashi-hennazaki. The reef begins a few strokes from the waterline, so a rented mask is enough to meet sea turtles fairly often. At ebb the coral nearly breaks the surface; go in when the water is high.

A Shimojishima beach facing west, its shallows strewn with house-sized boulders said to have been hurled ashore by the Meiwa tsunami of 1771. Evenings, with the sun dropping between the rocks, draw the crowd. Stone outnumbers sand, so wear sandals.

A small beach tucked beside the port in the middle of Hirara, walkable from the streets where most hotels sit. It suits a day without a rental car or the hour or two before a flight, and small children can paddle safely in the calm, knee-deep water.