Privacy—that’s what you’ll get loads of on Lanai, the smallest of the accessible Hawaiian Islands. Only about 3,000 people live on the island, and only about 100,000 visitors come ashore each year. At just 141 square miles, it’s so small and undeveloped, it has no fast-food restaurants, no shopping malls, and no stoplights. But then it doesn’t really need stoplights because it has only about 30 miles of paved roads. Once you’re there, it’s hard to believe you’re just 9 short miles across a channel from thriving Maui.

Visitors lured to Lanai by its seductive promise of seclusion certainly don’t have to rough it. Two of its three hotels are luxury resorts that treat the rich and famous very well. The Lodge at Koele sits tucked up in the hills at 1,600 feet, surrounded by tall pine trees. Its sister property, the oceanside Manele Bay Hotel, has a prime spot just off the island’s premier beach at Hulopoe Bay, a marine sanctuary. On New Year’s Day in 1994, billionaire Bill Gates (as in Microsoft) got married on the golf course at Manele Bay and honeymooned at the resort. He rented all of the rooms on the island to ensure that only friends and family attended the intimate nuptials.

Before the resorts opened in the early 1990s, Lanai was even less of a tourist stop than it is now. Instead, it had established a name for itself as home to the world’s largest pineapple plantation, but that industry has died out on the island and tourism now drives the local economy.

The tourism scene definitely has a dual personality, and visitors need to know that before leaving home. Yes, it’s all about sophistication at the resorts, with gourmet restaurants, the lush fairways of golf courses, and oh-so-civilized games of croquet on the lawn at the lodge. But venture away from their grounds, and the pampering, high life, and fantasy stop. There’s only one town, Lanai City, a small but friendly inland place void of all pretension. And most of the island’s tourist attractions on land—including a dry-land forest, a petroglyph field, and a summit from which you can sometimes see all of the Hawaiian Islands—require a true sense of adventure and a four-wheel-drive vehicle to reach. On Lanai, sightseeing usually means traveling down rugged, not paved, roads.

Except for Hulopoe, many of the beaches are tricky to access, too—and while good for strolling, sunbathing, and perhaps enjoying a picnic, many aren’t safe for swimming due to strong currents and riptides. But visitors do have plenty of safe fun in the Pacific with companies that offer snorkeling, scuba, sailing, kayaking, fishing, and other water-related tours.

Still, for those wanting to escape the rat race back home, the thought of being far away from madding crowds is reason enough to say aloha to Lanai.