Browsing: Beach Vacations

I travel frequently, and always prepare for my various jaunts doing fact-finding, participating in forums, asking friends, and even reading literature from my destination country. I’m prepared, but not too prepared, ever open to the spur-of-the-moment experiences traveling promises. For my month-long voyage to Southern India I spent an excessive amount of time planning. Hours, days, and months were spent investigating the merits of the SteriPEN® and concocting a route south from Mumbai. I weighed …

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You might feel like you have escaped to the edge of the planet, but in fact you have just reached the edge of the south Caribbean when you arrive on the island of Roatán. Best of all, that impression of distance continues as you make your way around this best known of Honduras’s Islas Bahias (Bay Islands), thanks to the pristine beaches and interior, the low-impact tourism, and the size and scale of everyday life …

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The official first day of fall has come and gone, the weather is slowly getting cooler and the days shorter so beach vacations may seem like a thing of the past at this point but, in reality, this is absolutely the best time of the year to visit many beaches. After Labor Day, the crowds diminish as children head back to school, and the prices are lowered, but the weather in many of these areas …

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I’m writing this article in a luxurious, five bedroom beach house on Tybee Island courtesy of Tybee Joy Vacation Rentals called Quit Yer Crabbin’ that is just a couple blocks from the beach and is so huge and elegant, we could live here forever. The two of us are rattling around in this huge house, never even using the expansive upstairs.

We are here to cover the annual Tybee Island Pirate Fest and we …

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If you’re looking for cosmopolitan urban culture or beautiful buildings, Port Elizabeth won’t be your first choice for a South African holiday destination. It’s a busy yet relatively crime-free industrial city (important to the South African motor industry) that marks the eastern end of the Garden Route. Although the city has been ravaged by industrialization and thoughtless modernization, one or two buildings do stand out in an otherwise featureless city centre. Thankfully, a couple of …

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One of the most important things I learned when I was in South Beach, Miami for a day recently is that if you are “in the know” you call it SoBe. If you find yourself in SoBe for a day and you like to shop, eat and lounge on the beach, here’s what I did to give you some ideas.

You have some choices when heading to SoBe from another part of Miami, but …

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Before we arrived at lovely Navarre Beach, we stopped at a Publix grocery on the way to pick up drinks and snacks to stock the fridge in our condo. We stopped before we got to Navarre because the last time I was there several years ago, there was no grocery store. You had to drive to nearby Pensacola or Gulf Breeze if you wanted to pick up groceries.

As we pulled up near the bridge …

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“What do you think of Colombia?” my husband asked. Colombia? We were searching for a way to get to South America from the States, and round-trip flights to the most popular destinations — Argentina, Peru, Chile — were surprisingly expensive. Colombia, on the other hand, was half the cost of those routes, and schedules typically involve a stop in Miami before heading to Bogota, an easy three-and-a-half-hour flight. “Sure!” I quickly agreed.

We spent one …

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I vaguely knew there were barrier islands off the coast of Georgia and the Carolinas, but for years our family beach vacations had been to Pensacola, Florida where my grandmother lived. We rented a beach house out on Santa Rosa Island and enjoyed the beautiful white sand of the Florida Panhandle.

But when we heard from a friend that Tybee Island, Georgia was beautiful, secluded, and only a 10-hour drive from Lexington, Kentucky, where we …

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Does your winter warm-weather search include a stop in San Diego? If it doesn’t, it should. Mild winters make this destination a favorite for anyone seeking an escape from snow and cold. It’s not uncommon to go walking on the beach on Christmas Day in flip-flops and shorts or jogging on New Year’s in a tank top.

What’s good for you is good for Fido, too. San Diego is emerging as an extremely dog-friendly destination …

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Our flight departed Phoenix, Ariz., at an obscene time of the morning – 6:30 a.m. – but despite that fact, we were still ready, willing and able to kick off our vacation with a morning mimosa. It was the beginning of the Labor Day holiday, but the airport traffic in Phoenix was not bad. Upon arrival in Honolulu’s airport, we were welcomed by the humidity that swathed our body like a damp blanket; yet, despite …

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Strewn like three bright, emerald colored jewels in the Caribbean Sea, the three U.S. Virgin Islands of St. John, St. Croix and St.Thomas provide a variety of activities for the tourists who stream off the cruise ships daily. Watersports, shopping for duty-free items, or just lounging around on the beautiful beaches are all possibilities.

But we were there to snorkel.

The crystal-clear water of the many coves and inlets of St. Thomas provide the perfect …

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People will tell you there are tons of things to do in Mauritius.

Well, the Mauritian people will tell you that, then list dubious attractions like the stamp museum and a dodo skeleton. But trying to lure visitors to this gorgeous tropical island by conjuring up copious activities is missing the point. The point being that Mauritius isn’t the place to go if you want to do stuff. It’s the place to go to do …

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There is no water anywhere in the world quite like the Caribbean. I have been to beaches all my life but the first time I saw the incredible, innumerable shades of blue and green that make up the Caribbean I was truly amazed. Sparkling jade, dark and mysterious emerald, clear turquoise, pale blue topaz – it’s a whole jewelry box of colors. Diving into the Caribbean is an experience like no other, with jewel-bright fish …

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