A guide to the finest overwater-villa and overwater-bungalow resorts, starting in the Maldives. See which resorts do the water villa properly and which lagoon to pick.

The overwater villa is the one room most people picture when they think of a dream holiday: a wooden deck on stilts, a ladder into a lagoon the colour of a pool, and nothing between you and the water. The trouble is that hundreds of resorts now sell some version of it, and the gap between the ones that do it properly and the ones that just charge for the view is wide. This site ranks the resorts worth the seaplane, starting in the Maldives where the overwater villa was perfected.

Each resort is judged on the villa itself, its size, privacy, and how close it sits to good reef, along with the house reef, the food, and how well the place looks after the lagoon it is built on. We write plainly, name the specifics, and tell you which lagoon and which villa category are actually worth it rather than lumping a whole resort into one score.

Pick the destination, read the write-ups, and book the villa you actually want. Resorts can ask to be considered, but position is earned.