Four Seasons Resort Langkawi designed for both families and couples

A slice of heaven stretched along 1.5km of wide, empty beach in the north of the Malaysian island of Langkawi. The resort is split roughly into family and non-family areas, one of the two swimming pools being adult only (below).

That there is nobody here. Beyond entrance architecture that transports you to somewhere Moorish, the 91 rooms (if you can call a 590 square metre, two-bedroom villa a "room") are spread across 20 hectares of landscaped gardens, so, other than at mealtimes, solitude is all but guaranteed. The beach and sea tend to be deserted, too, even when the purple flag - which warns of "sea pests": jellyfish, stingrays or sea urchins - isn't flying.

Once you've become accustomed to all the space, you'll notice a blend of Arabic design influences, relaxing water features and, if you're in a beach house, a lap pool and a huge outdoor showering area - a garden, really. Unless you're fabulously wealthy, you don't even want to know how massive the Royal Villa is (although we'll tell you below). Around the villas run paths made with repurposed railway sleepers from Borneo, a resource that is becoming very hard to get hold of. From the expanse of Tanjung Rhu beach can be seen the distant hills of the Thai island of Ko Tarutao.

With jet skiing, archery, rock climbing and horse and pony riding available on-site, where does one begin? Perhaps with Aidi Abdullah. Something of a legend on Langkawi, the resort's in-house naturalist knows all there is to know about the island. Take a boat trip through the mangrove with him and he'll point out all manner of wildlife you'd have missed otherwise as he expounds enthusiastically on everything from the merits of Peranakan cuisine to the wider wonders of the geopark that is Langkawi.

There was that danger, yes, because the authorities had been remiss in looking after the island's natural riches - but the warning has been heeded and, according to Abdullah, an adviser to the Langkawi Development Authority, enough has now been done to satisfy the UN body.