Lanzarote, verdict by verdict

Lanzarote is the Canary Island that most rewards the curious: Timanfaya's volcanic badlands look like the moon, Cesar Manrique left the island's tourism architecture his signature from Jameos del Agua to the Mirador del Rio and the cactus garden, and the La Geria wine region grows vines inside hollows dug into black ash. No other island mixes raw geology and designed landscapes this tightly.

The real caveats: it is windier and drier than the western Canaries, barren lava country rather than green hiking terrain, and the summer trade winds can be constant enough to bother beachgoers even as windsurfers love them. The resorts of Puerto del Carmen, Playa Blanca and Costa Teguise are pleasant but purpose-built, Arrecife is a working city rather than a wild old town, and the marquee CACT sights each charge entry, so costs stack up unless a multi-centre ticket covers them.

Five to seven days is the shape, with a rental car for at least part of it: one day for Timanfaya and the La Geria bodegas, one for the north-coast CACT sights, one for Papagayo or the La Graciosa ferry, the rest at a resort base. It offers year-round winter sun as the driest island in the archipelago, and October to April is the sweet spot for the volcanic interior. For a beach week with a unusual day out every day, it is the pick of the eastern Canaries.