Islands are appealing as much for what they offer as for what they don’t—24/7 access, a fondness for punctuality, the daily drama of mainland life with all its complex, shifting demands. Remoteness, or at least the idea of it, has always been integral to their allure, drawing everyone from backpacking nature lovers to high-profile billionaires in search of isolation to places where it might be possible, even in an era of relentless connectivity, to decompress, unwind, and see nothing but the surrounding sea or a rogue goat or two on an ancient, barely-paved roadway.

Italy’s hundreds of islands sprinkled off the country’s extensive coastline range from five-star glamor havens like Capri to such uninhabited spots as Zannone near Ponza. A number of these rocky outposts, like Favignana, the largest of the Egadi Islands located 12 nautical miles south of Trapani, fall between the endpoints of development, or lack of it; they’re accogliente, but in a localized way, with mostly family-owned hotels, inns, and restaurants, catch-all convenience stores, languorous siesta hours, and an infrastructure that can be sensitive to the whims of nature.