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If the wilds of coastal Alaska seem a little tame for you, head west to Unalaska. Set in the heart of the 1,000-mile-long Aleutian chain, this rugged outpost was a Russian fur trade outpost in the 18th century and a U.S. military stronghold in WWII. Today it’s home to Alaska’s largest commercial fishing fleet. Nearly all of the island’s residents are tied to the fishing industry in the town’s working port of Dutch Harbor, but visitors can hike amid fields of wildflowers, pick wild berries, go mountain biking, climb several volcanic peaks, kayak along wilderness coastlines (sea otters and whales...

The Beaches of ATLANTIC CITY, VENTNOR, MARGATE & LONGPORT For many years, Atlantic City was America's premier beach resort. That was before there were casinos. It was a time when people came to Atlantic City for the beach. Today, as then, the beach still stretches for miles however a large portion is backed up by casinos and the heavily travelled boardwalk. The Main Atlantic City beach is a setting to itself. The main beach runs along the boardwalk and the casino strip and is divided every several blocks by huge piers that jut into the ocean. You can stroll along the beach under these...

The Exumas were settled in 1783 by American Loyalists who wanted to remain true to the British king after the United States won the American Revolutionary War. They reassembled their former way of life in these islands, complete with cotton plantations and African slaves. Remnants of these plantations still remain. Lord John Rolle was a major landowner and one of the most powerful Loyalists. When he freed his slaves in 1835, he bequeathed his land to them for life. In gratitude, several towns are named after him and many of the people in The Exumas wear the name of "Rolle" with pride. They...

Acklins and Crooked Island are two of the four islands forming an atoll which hugs the beautiful shallow waters of the Bight of Acklins. Bordered by the nearly uninhabited Castle Island and Long Cay, they are as natural as they were when The Bahamas was first "discovered." Columbus reputedly sailed down the leeward side of the islands through the narrow Crooked Island Passage, which has ever since served as an important route for steam ships travelling from Europe to Central and South America. This seaway, referred to locally as 'the going through,' also earned these islands the notorious...

Cat Island may have derived its name from Arthur Catt, the famous British sea captain or notorious pirate (depending on whose side you were on). A competing source for the name are the hordes of wild cats that the English encountered here on arrival in the 1600s. The cats were said to be descendants of their tamer cousins orphaned by the early Spanish colonists in their rush to find the gold of South America. This boot-shaped, untamed island is one of the most beautiful and fertile of The Bahamas. A lush sanctuary, it provides tranquillity for those seeking an escape from the pressures of...

Look around at the elegant resort hotels, golf courses, casino, marinas, and shopping malls of Freeport/Lucaya – and you may find it hard to believe that none of this existed when JFK was president. Faster-paced than Nassau, this cosmopolitan "second city" of the Bahamas is really only four decades old, a monument to modern tourism. But what makes Grand Bahama special is the fact that while you can play, shop, gamble, and boogie the night away to your heart's content in American-style comfort, much of the island remains as it was before the resort revolution. That includes miles of uncrowded,...

Stroll at sunset down the Malecón, the timeless waterfront wall on the Havana waterfront, and you begin to get the feeling that time itself stopped in this city in the 1950s. It’s not just the old American cars in the streets or the exquisite colonial architecture with peeling paint in Old Havana. Instead, it’s a sense that the world of modern tourism has somehow largely bypassed the Caribbean’s largest island. And that’s an island with some of the region’s finest beaches (Varadero, with 12 miles of palm-lined white-sand, is as close as Cuba comes to a resort area), untapped diving...

If this outpost in the western province of the Solomon Islands isn't the final frontier of diving, it's at least in the neighborhood. As Aussie divers have known for some time, Ghizo's underwater world is filled with great reefs, staggering numbers of fish both large and small – and some vivid reminders of the World War II, including wrecks of a Japanese transport ship and an American Hellcat fighter plane. The main town, Gizo (yes, the spelling is different) is the second largest in the island chain, but the main street is lined mostly with small stores and an open-air market...

Captivated by the island he named Hispaniola on his first voyage to the New World in 1492, Columbus returned here the following year to build the first Spanish city in the Americas. Five centuries later, the natural beauty that attracted the explorer is still evident in the D.R.'s magnificent mountains (including the Caribbean's loftiest, 10,414-foot-high Pico Duarte), rivers, waterfalls, and flawless white-sand beaches. What Columbus couldn't have envisioned are the upscale resorts that line some of those beaches and the 20-plus golf courses (including some of the Caribbean's...

Aruba is not your typically lush margaritaville. Located deep in the southern Caribbean, just 15 miles off the coast of Venezuela and outside the hurricane belt, its arid interior landscape appears to be straight out of Arizona. But people sure do love it. Like its sister isles of Bonaire and Curaçao (together, the three make up the "ABC" islands), Aruba has a character and architecture defined by its Dutch heritage and its proximity to South America. As a modern vacation spot, this Netherland Antilles island covers all the bases, with deluxe resorts, powdery white sands, 27 dive sites...