Spiekeroog

Spiekeroog is the "green island" — car-free, with a 19th-century horse-tram, East Frisia's oldest surviving island church (1696) and the Hermann-Lietz-Schule, a progressive boarding school founded in 1928. 18 km² of dunes and salt marsh, a 15 km beach with the Wadden Sea coming and going twice a day. Get there: ferry from Neuharlingersiel (45 min, high-tide only). In the village: a compact centre around the church, the saltwater pool, the seashell museum, the horse-tram station. Spiekeroog has chosen against mass tourism — no fast-food stands on the beach, no chain hotels.