Readers of Conde Nast Traveller magazine in the U.K. have chosen Mozambique’s Bazaruto Archipelago as the “best island” in Africa and the Indian Ocean in the magazine’s 2021 Readers’ Choice Awards.

Announced on October 5th, the annual awards are among the most prestigious in the travel industry.

Bazaruto finished with an almost perfect score of 98.2, well ahead of Zanzibar (95.19), the Seychelles (94.71), the Maldives (94.4) and Mauritius (94.25).

Home to Anantara’s Bazaruto Island Resort, the paradise islands float in the Indian Ocean off the southern shore of Mozambique.

“I have scoured the world for a stretch of sand and sea to match this extravagant expanse of wild, dune-backed shoreline but have seldom come close,” wrote Peter Browne of the Bazaruto islands in an earlier issue of the magazine . . .

“For me the coast of Mozambique is perfection, especially at its most terrifyingly loud, wild and windy when humpback whales breach offshore and whale sharks take shelter from storms in the bulbous coral outcrops and caverns of its depths.”