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Kailua, meaning "two seas," is a beautiful community located on the scenic southeastern shore of the island of Oahu, Hawaii. Kailua’s beach park has become known as the windsurfing capital of the world. Its steady off shore trade wind, a protective coral reef and consistent water temperature of 75° Fahrenheit (25° C) makes Kailua perfect for year round water sports. Kailua Beach has been rated by Conde Nast as one of the most beautiful beaches in the world so many times that is has been removed from the Conde Naste list to allow other beaches a chance to win. This is also the most popular ...

Although 350 islands make up the Archipielago de los Canarreos, Isla de la Juventud is by far the biggest of them and this region is administered from the island's capital, Nueva Gerona. Much of the island is flat and the Cienaga de Lanier is Cuba's second-largest swamp. Isla de la Juventud is the least populated region of Cuba, with most people living in the north of the island. Once known as Parrot Island, it was a hideout for pirates like Francis Drake, John Hawkins, Thomas Baskerville and Henry Morgan, and it inspired Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island. The local economy ...

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 uncr...

It's not hard to fall in love with an island. In the 1950s an American sailor fell hard for the beautiful bays, beaches, and steep hills of St. John, and because the sailor happened to be Laurance Rockefeller, he bought more than half of the island. Luckily for all of us, Rockefeller gave away most of his purchase to help create Virgin Islands National Park. Today that 11,000-acre park is an oasis of untrammeled nature in the U. S. Virgin Islands. You'll need a 4X4 to cover most of the island, and seasoned visitors to the island often arrive with both hiking boots and swim fins in ...

The Juan Fernandez Islands were used as the basis for Robinson Crusoe –Daniel Defoe’s classic novel. However, tourism has never really taken off here, despite the fact that it is much closer to the mainland than Easter Island. Named after the Portuguese sailor who found it in the 16th-century, the volcanic islands are valued most for their remoteness, by those who really want to get off the tourist track. Access is via a bumpy two to two and a half hour flight on a light aircraft, and only a determined couple hundred tourists make it here each year - an average of one or two per day....

When divers dream of a trip to the Caribbean, chances are that Grand Cayman is the first island that comes to mind. It's the cornerstone of a reef-rich archipelago that includes sister islands Cayman Brac and Little Cayman. Grand Cayman itself has more than 150 dive sites, but snorkelers won't feel left out: In fact, the most popular underwater attraction is Stingray City, where divers and snorkelers alike can swim with and feed stingrays that have wingspans up to six feet. (If you prefer to keep your feet dry, you can sightsee by submarine on a 48-passenger underwater vessel.) Mor...

On Bondi Beach you can spot just about every Australian beach cliche: bronzed Aussie lifesavers pulling pale British tourists from the surf, topless beach bunnies baking themselves senseless under the blazing sun, men in singlets sipping Victoria Bitter beer and children nursing rapidly disintegrating ice creams.

Bora-Bora has been called the world's most beautiful island so many times, it's almost a cliche. But as the saying goes, there's a lot of truth in cliches: Spectacular peaks soaring over the world's most beautiful lagoon (not much argument there) offer a vision of the classic South Pacific paradise. It's a vision that many visitors (a sizable number of them honeymooners) experience from the luxury of an overwater bungalow at one of the several world-class resorts scattered around the island. When you can swim, snorkel, or canoe from your front porch, you may not feel an urg...

Taveuni is sometimes called Fiji's "Garden Isle," and while it has spectacular landscapes, the island is best known for its diving – some of the finest in the South Pacific. But this is not diving for the novice. Sites in the Somosomo Strait, a narrow channel between Taveuni and the larger island of Vanua Levu, are renowned for their amazing walls of soft corals – and for the strong currents that can unsettle beginning divers. For the experienced, the rewards of diving the famed 20-mile-long Rainbow Reef include tropical fish beyond count (one site that lives up to its name: The Fish F...