Home: Carbis Bay, Cornwall

St Ives Bay glimmers through the glass balustrade of this balcony, but you don’t need to step outside to absorb the views. The conservatory and master bedroom above provide a front-row spectacle, and the living room lines up behind. There are panoramic terraces at the front and rear, and a segment of garden that belong to this three-bedroom flat. The block of six apartments sits in a no-through road, while the coastal path passes by on its way to the beach and to St Ives a mile along the shore. Price: £500,000.Onthemarket, 01872 395949

Home: Sedge House, Eastbridge, Suffolk

The extremity of the vaulted living room is walled in glass and opens on to a glazed balcony so you can watch the farmland from your sofa. A second balcony overlooks marshes at the other end of the room. The property is on a protected nature reserve, resembles a giant beach hut and is eco-friendly. It’s a topsy-turvy arrangement inside with three double bedrooms downstairs and the living quarters above. For all the remoteness of being on the edge of a hamlet, you are grafted intimately on to your neighbour. Yours for £550,000.Bedfords, 01728 454505

Home: Tannery House, Shoreditch, London

It’s a pity the dramatic full-height windows open on to that most frustrating of inventions, a Juliet balcony. So no chance of sunbathing, but beyond the balustrade is urban drama, including the Shard and Gherkin piercing the clouds beyond the surrounding rooftops. This duplex is carved out of a leather factory and boasts all the ingredients of the New York loft fad – exposed brick walls, beams and girders, open-plan living and portions of double-height ceiling. Both bedrooms are elongated doubles. On the market for £825,000. Urbanspaces, 020 7251 4000

Away: Kotor, Montenegro

The balcony, dangling over the Bay of Kotor, is almost a side issue. On it you can sunbathe side by side with sea and mountains, but a 360-degree spectacle is available upstairs on the communal roof terrace which accommodates two pools, a restaurant and a bar. A third pool is on ground level along with the gym, sauna, steam room and deli. A one-bedroom flat here, with fully glazed wall to bring the views inside, is £99,156, and a management service will look after it for you when you have to drag yourself home. Tranio, 020 3608 1267

Away: Combloux, Haute-Savoie

This apartment block, cunningly disguised as a chalet, sits at the foot of Mont Blanc and snowy peaks rear beyond the wide wood balconies. You can be straddling one within the quarter of an hour it takes to retrieve your kit from the residents’ ski lockers, shuffle the three minutes to the chair lift and whirr up to 276 miles of pistes. When the snows are gone there’s the indoor pool and spa shared by the occupants of the 52 flats and 12 demi-chalets. Prices start at £286,000 for a two-bedroom apartment. Erna Low Property Ltd, 020 7590 1624