St. Lucia is the sort of island that travellers to the Caribbean dream about--a small, lush tropical gem that is still relatively unknown. One of the Windward Islands of the Lesser Antilles, it is located midway down the Eastern Caribbean chain, between Martinique and St. Vincent, and north of Barbados. St. Lucia is only 27 miles long and 14 miles wide, with a shape that is said to resemble either a mango or an avocado (depending on your taste). The Atlantic Ocean kisses its eastern shore, while the beaches of the west coast owe their beauty to the calm Caribbean Sea.

The telephone directory for Pengosekan, Bali, is short but confusing. Of 200 listings, almost all contain a Dewa, the name of the person I'm looking for. Dewa is a much used Balinese caste name, and while not everyone chooses to be called by their caste name, that's still a lot of Dewas. "Better you just go there," says a waiter at my hotel, in the neighboring town of Ubud. I mention that the Dewa I am seeking is a gamelan musician. "Walk down the street and listen," says the waiter. "You are sure to find him." The advice is astute: Bali is an island best navigated by the senses....

The sound of an Irish fiddle in a cozy village pub warmed by a turf fire and lively conversation. Scenes straight out of the movies. Literary, poetic, gifted in the art of conversation, the Irish extend their love of language even to the names of counties and towns, which roll off the tongue like music: Clare, Cork, Kerry, Limerick, and Kilkenny. For a taste of Irish culture, from the Abbey Theatre to traditional music, proceed directly to Dublin, where Joyce, Shaw, and Yeats all worked – and U2 still does. Shoppers may want to stroll Grafton Street for traditional tweeds and newfangled knits,...

Brief timeline, from sighting to settlement, statehood & beyond It is generally believed Hawaii's first permanent inhabitants sailed in voyaging canoes from the southern hemisphere islands of the Marquesas, between 300 and 800 A.D. Later waves of settlers arrived by the 12th century, this time from Tahiti. Following is a timeline of events dating from the arrival in the Islands of the first European explorers:

Prince Edward Island is Canada's smallest and greenest province. Cradled on the waves of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the Island is known for the vivid colours of its gently rolling landscape. Prince Edward Island is surrounded by miles of sandy beaches and red sandstone cliffs and is sized just right for touring. Visitors to the Island return home not only relaxed and refreshed - they often claim to have been transformed, which leads us to wonder "What if the World Had Been to Prince Edward Island?"

Mount Desert Island, off the coast of Maine, is widely known as the home of Acadia National Park and the town of Bar Harbor. If we viewed the island from the air (a look at the Acadia map will do), we would notice north and south aligned gouges scooped out of the land as if by a very large hand. Indeed, in this case, the hand was that of a huge, slow moving, continental glacier over a mile high,... 2 miles thick in some places. When this giant glacier finally melted and retreated, it left rounded mountain tops, long lakes, many boulders, and the 7 mile long Somes Sound - the only fjord on the...

GEOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION Cancun, or “Nest of Serpents” in the Mayan language, is Mexico’s world famous tourist resort. Its sophisticated infrastructure, variety of top quality tourism services and diversity of attractions has turned it into the Caribbean’s premier destination. Cancun is visited by more than three million people from all over the world each year and contributes more than one third of Mexico’s tourism generated revenues. Embedded in northern Quintana Roo, a state located in southeast Mexico, Cancun is a hub linking the state’s archaeological sites with those of the neighboring...

Ten thousand years ago, glaciers pushed their way down the East Coast and left behind the rocks and soil that was to form this little paradise that we call home. The result was a cozy community (only around 800 folks in the winter), a land of stunning vistas and a very fragile ecosystem that we have had the good fortune to preserve for all to share. Because of the particular forces of nature that went to work on Block Island, no other place on earth shares its geography, nor its balance of species. A rarity, indeed. Block Island is a rarity in another sense; it's a place that moves at...

Antigua is an island that has always lived by the wind. In the late 18th century, when Horatio Nelson was still a captain, he made the island Great Britain's most important Caribbean naval center. Today the superbly restored dockyard that bears his name at English Harbour is home base for April's Sailing Week, the Caribbean's premier yachting event – and its most boisterous beach party. As for beaches, Antigua's promoters like to say that the island has 365 of them, one for every day of the year. Certainly there are more beaches than you could ever stroll during a long holiday,...

BIOLOGY The Hawaiian Islands have a wide variety of plant, marine and animal life. Vegetation zones include: coastal, dryland forest, mixed open forest, rain forest, subalpine and alpine. More than 90 percent of the native plants and animals living in Hawaii are found nowhere else in the world, and a greater variety of fish exist in Hawaiian waters than elsewhere. The humuhumunukunukuapuaa is the official state fish. Hawaii is sometimes called the Endangered Species Capital of the World. At least one third of all the endangered species in the United States are found in Hawaii including the...