LOMBOK, April 27 — At a time when paradisiacal beaches have never seemed so inaccessible, in all likelihood Bali is still figuring large in many people's daydreams. The Indonesian destination has the distinction of being the island with the largest number of hashtags on Instagram, according to a ranking established by the travel agent Tourlane and published this week.

In this time of lockdown, do you sometimes find yourself dreaming of islands? There's nothing like the innocent pleasure of imagining a beach of white sand on the shores of a turquoise lagoon. But which island comes to mind before all the others? For many of you the answer is probably Bali, at least it should be given its popularity on social networks. The Buddhist island in Indonesia has no less than 60,473,066 mentions on Instagram.

Tour operator Tourlane has gone to the trouble of creating a ranking of the island destinations that are most popular on the social network. Only islands that are not sovereign nations were considered eligible for inclusion in the ranking, while those with fewer than 100,000 hashtags were automatically excluded.

The good news for Europeans is that once the lockdown is over, many of them will be able to embark on a trip to their island destination of choice without having to board a long-haul flight. In fact, 26 of the 50 most-Instagrammed islands are located in Europe, with seven featuring in the top ten: Ibiza (Spain) ranked 2nd, Sicily (Italy) 3rd, Mallorca (Spain) 4th, Tenerife (Spain) 6th, Sardinia (Italy) 7th, Santorini (Greece) 9th and Corsica (France) 10th. 

The full list of the most Instagrammed islands in the world is available from  www.tourlane.com. — AFP-Relaxnews