(Needless to say, such pleasures have their price. Please note that the pricing cited for each trip may depend upon a required minimum number of guests.)";
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Spread Your Towel: Bai Dai Beach, Phu Quoc, Vietnam
Shore lines: Vietnam's biggest island, mountainous Phu Quoc, has some of the best beaches in the country. They have remained off the radar largely because Phu Quoc lies close to Cambodia, which has long claimed it, and the Vietnamese military response to the claims was to build bases there, with many of the beaches falling within their boundaries. Rumors of development on the horizon have loosened things up, though, and the military now allows access to some of the beaches, including Bai Dai, which is among the most remote and pristine. The water is calm, the sand is gold, and the quiet is soul-soothing. Visit October through March, but don't wait too long — unless you love golf.
Best bunk: La Veranda is a 43-room colonial-style resort on Long Beach, along the west coast of Phu Quoc. The high-ceilinged rooms have teak furniture and 1930s decor.
La Veranda
Tel: 84 77 982 988
Doubles from $125";
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Spread Your Towel: Wildcat Beach, Point Reyes National Seashore, California
Shore lines: Since you have to walk more than five miles to reach it, you won't be fighting the crowds for a spot on this isolated stretch of sand 30 miles north of San Francisco. Use your isolation to go for long, barefoot walks or, January through May, look for migrating gray whales. Failing that, just sit on the beach and watch the frothy pileup of Pacific swells that may have come — or so it is easy to imagine — all the way from Japan. In the evening, if you have remembered to get the necessary permit (this is a National Seashore, after all), build a fire at the tide line and toast your good fortune with marshmallows.
Best Bunk: After making the effort to hike in, you'll be glad to unroll your sleeping bag at the Wildcat Campground. It has seven backcountry campsites in a meadow on a bluff overlooking the ocean, and is within steps of the beach. A permit is required and the sites are popular, so make a reservation up to three months before your arrival.
Point Reyes National Seashore
Tel: 415 663 8054
$15 per campsite, for up to six people";
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Spread Your Towel: Los Frailes, Ecuador
Shore lines: Lovely and lonely, Los Frailes is the image Ecuadorians hold up when they want to match their beaches against some of the most beautiful in South America. Pacific rollers pile onto a forest-backed crescent of sand guarded at either end by high cliffs. Part of undeveloped Machalilla National Park, the beach is often deserted, especially during the Ecuadoran winter in June and July, when locals tend to stay away but the skies are clearest and there's a chance to see whales. Get there by flying from Quito to Portoviejo via Tame airlines, then rent a car or take a taxi to Puerto Lopez, where you can find a room and make arrangements for visiting the park, a few miles north of town. Best to visit with a small group, which can be arranged through tour agencies in Puerto Lopez, in case local entrepreneurs add to your adventure by relieving you of your valuables.
Best Bunk: Brightly colored and many roofed, in a style loosely referred to as \"Mediterranean,\" the 15-room Mantaraya Lodge is without air-conditioning, but it does have private bathrooms and a swimming pool, which is more than enough to qualify it as the best place to stay in the area. Another plus is its location, about 10 minutes to Puerto Lopez in one direction and to the park entrance in the other.
Mantaraya Lodge
Tel: 593 2 244 8985
Doubles from $85";
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Spread Your Towel: Pink Beach, Barbuda, Antigua and Barbuda
Shore lines: Yachtsmen and day-trippers to Antigua's sister island usually get no further than the beach at Low Bay, on the northwest coast of Barbuda. Low Bay is pretty enough, and it's a convenient starting point for a visit to what is one of the world's largest frigate bird sanctuaries — if the smell of bird poop is what you've come to the Caribbean for. But the real beauty on the island is Pink Beach. Essentially one huge sandbar, this flamingo-hued swath extends eight miles from Palmetto Point towards Spanish Point, at the southern end. About the only people who stroll Pink Beach are guests from the handful of small hotels that sit on it.
Best Bunk: How could you not feel special at a hotel whose price includes being flown into its private airstrip? Even better, Coco Point Lodge, with both 10 lodge rooms and six beachfront cottages, is on its own 164-acre peninsula, which means you've got its two miles of beach pretty much to yourselves.
Coco Point Lodge
Tel: 268 462 3816
Doubles from $840, all-inclusive";
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Spread Your Towel: Playa Medina, Venezuela
Shore lines: This palm-fringed crescent of sand on the isolated Paria Peninsula is so pretty that Club Med once planned to build its first hotel in South America here. Thanks to local opposition, the hotel never arrived — nor have many visitors — in part because of the daunting ten-hour drive from Caracas. What remains untouched is about as perfect a beach for chilling out as you could find anywhere. The water is clear and calm, the sand is gold, and not one of the few people you meet will be trying to interest you in a time-share. Scattered beneath the palms are the eight cabanas of a simple, well-weathered hotel (with an equally simple restaurant) where there's little to do and no rush to do it. Be sure to bring a book — or a love — whose interest you know will hold you. The best time to visit is December through April, and the easiest way to travel is by prop plane (avior.com.ve) from Caracas to nearby Carupano, then arrange transport through the hotel.
Best Bunk: List the features of the rustic Posada Playa Medina — double bed, porch with hammock, electric fan, private bath with (usually) hot water — and you'll understand why it is the perfect retreat for would-be castaways.
Posada Playa Medina
Tel: 58 294 331 5241
Doubles from $165, including breakfast and dinner";
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Spread Your Towel: Poles Bay, Kea, Greece
Shore lines: The island of Kea, with terraced hillsides and ancient, stone-paved walking paths, is a day trip from Athens. But because it is not on the main ferry routes, only a few foreigners and not that many more Greeks find their way to it. Of those who do, just a handful discover the beach at Poles Bay on the southeast coast, which can be reached only by boat or a three-hour round-trip walk that will have you breathing like a smoker on a treadmill. What the intrepid few who make it earn for their efforts are twin sand beaches separated by a rocky headland upon which sit the ruins of the ancient city of Karthea. The lonely landscape is scattered with so many pot shards one can only conclude that the ancient Greeks, for all their genius, did not invent the broom. To reach Kea, take a ferry from Lavrion, near the tip of the Attic Peninsula. Once on the island, make arrangements in the port of Korissia for a local boat to Poles Bay or a taxi ride to the village of Stavroudaki, where the path down to the bay begins.
Best Bunk: Porto Kea Suites, the island's only boutique hotel, is just outside Korissia. It is some distance from Poles Bay, but then so is everything else. And don't tell anyone we told you, but the 34-room hotel, built of stone and wood in the local style, is just a short walk from Korissia's own beach, also worth a visit.
Porto Kea Suites
Tel: 30 22880 22870
Doubles from $128";
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Spread Your Towel: Cayo Costa, Florida
Shore lines: There was a time, before Florida and beachfront and development evolved almost into one word, when just about all of the Sunshine State's beaches looked like Cayo Costa's — soft white sand, chill-out serenity, and nary a high-rise at the tide line. What's allowed it to remain so pristine is its isolation in one of Florida's state parks. On a barrier island off Florida's southern Gulf coast, it is reachable only by private boat or a small public ferry that charges $25 per person for day visitors. Once you arrive, though, count on having at least some of its nine miles of soft white sand all to yourself. If you score one of the 12 primitive cabins or a coveted spot in one of the 18 campsites, you can be among the first to head for the south end of the island at sunrise, where the best shells wash up, especially during the winter months.
Best Bunk: The primitive cabins are just that — each is not much more than a shelter, sans electricity, for six bunks, plus a picnic table outside. Bathrooms and showers are in a common building nearby. But it is only steps away from the beach.
Cayo Costa State Park
Tel: 800 326 3521, cabin reservations; 239 283 0015, ferry reservations
Cabins cost $30, ferry price for overnighters, $30 per person";
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Spread Your Towel: Plage Blanche, Morocco
Shore lines: Few beaches take more effort to get to than Plage Blanche, where the Sahara meets the sea. But following hours and hours of dusty, unmarked track that starts in the middle of nowhere is worth it for anyone who wants to get in ahead of the coming mega-resort that will reportedly include 28 hotels, the first of them to open in 2012. Backed by rolling dunes, the beach is 25 miles long, and for now about the only thing you'll see on it is an occasional fisherman, a couple of hard-core surfers, or a bogged-down Land Rover (hopefully not yours). Best to arrive at the little Fort Bou-Jerif hotel, near the desert town of Guelmin, where you can hire a four-wheel-drive vehicle and a driver who knows the way. Of course how easy it is to find the Fort Bou-Jerif can be summed up by pointing out that the hotel considers it useful to include GPS coordinates with its directions.
Best Bunk: The Fort Bou-Jerif, the creation of a French couple who clearly march to the beat of their own drum, is modeled after an abandoned Moroccan fort the authorities wouldn't let them convert to a hotel. A stone structure with turrets, it has 15 double rooms, although the couple says they can set up nomad tents so they never have to turn anyone away.
Fort Bou-Jerif
Tel: 212 (0) 72 13 00 17
Doubles from $130, including breakfast";
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Spread Your Towel: Porat Beach, Bisevo, Croatia
Shore lines: Most of the people who make it to Bisevo — usually on a half-day excursion from nearby Vis or one of the other islands off the Dalmatian Coast — are there to visit the Blue Cave, a kind of poor man's version of Capri's Blue Grotto (but every bit as pretty at midday, when the sun is out). If you are after the rare bit of European sand that is without umbrellas, though, head for Porat Beach, in a sandy cove tucked among limestone cliffs on the west side of the island. You'll find a beach bar, a restaurant where you would be remiss not to try the fish, and not much else. Tour boats will sometimes anchor off the beach for a swim, so that's one way to get there, but better to rent a boat in Komiza, on Vis, and set your own timetable.
Best Bunk: Bisevo has a permanent population you can count on your toes, so the closest place to stay is Komiza, at the two-star 131-room Hotel Bisevo. In fact, the Bisevo is about the only place to stay in Komiza. And while it might not compare well in terms of quality to a Motel 6, it is convenient to the boats, and just across the street is the pebbly but pretty Lutitza Beach.
Hotel Bisevo
Tel: 385 21 713095
Doubles from $82, including breakfast";
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Spread Your Towel: Majahuitas Cove, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
Shore lines: The day-trippers from Puerto Vallarta know this palm tree–backed beach, accessible only by boat, in a little cove at the southern end of Banderas Bay. But the real secret is that the day-trippers are there for only a few hours. Stay at the eight-room hotel tucked up under the palms, and most of the day the beach has only your name on it. The boat ride from Puerto Vallarta is about 20 minutes; go barefoot, as it ends with getting your feet wet. Although not a high-energy kind of place, the cove is perfect for snorkeling, kayaking, and trying not to feel superior to the people who have to take the return boat.
Best Bunk: A little eight-room hotel with the same name as the beach, Majahuitas manages to have an upscale feel while being so simple that the rooms are without electricity. Each is an open-air casita, either up high, overlooking the cove, or almost right down at the tide line. And yes, you have to be OK with sharing space with the occasional bug.
Shore lines: The day-trippers from Puerto Vallarta know this palm tree–backed beach, accessible only by boat, in a little cove at the southern end of Banderas Bay. But the real secret is that the day-trippers are there for only a few hours. Stay at the eight-room hotel tucked up under the palms, and most of the day the beach has only your name on it. The boat ride from Puerto Vallarta is about 20 minutes; go barefoot, as it ends with getting your feet wet. Although not a high-energy kind of place, the cove is perfect for snorkeling, kayaking, and trying not to feel superior to the people who have to take the return boat.
Best Bunk: A little eight-room hotel with the same name as the beach, Majahuitas manages to have an upscale feel while being so simple that the rooms are without electricity. Each is an open-air casita, either up high, overlooking the cove, or almost right down at the tide line. And yes, you have to be OK with sharing space with the occasional bug.
Majahuitas
Tel: 1 877 278 8018
Doubles from $375
\" target=\"_blank\">Majahuitas
Tel: 1 877 278 8018
Doubles from $375";
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Spread your towel: Store Beach, Sydney, Australia
Shore lines: As implausible as it might seem, there is indeed a hidden beach almost within a boomerang's throw of Sydney. What's kept Store Beach — part of the Sydney Harbour National Park — hidden is that a guardian rank of rocks makes it accessible only by boat. On weekends there might be a fleet of watercraft anchored off it (but not closer than 150 feet to the shore), and occasionally even a wedding taking place on its soft sand. But on a weekday, rent a kayak near the Manly Wharf, paddle the half hour out toward North Head, and you can usually count on the beach being empty enough for you to play Robinson Crusoe or, if you are more inclined, Blue Lagoon.
Best Bunk: By taking a ferry from Circular Quay to Manly, you could stay just about anywhere in the heart of Sydney. But the contemporarily designed Sebel Manly Beach is more convenient. All of its 83 rooms are recently refurbished and have balconies, the best of them with ocean views.
Sebel Manly Beach
Tel: 61 2 9977 8866
Doubles from $209";
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Spread Your Towel: Polihua Beach, Lanai, Hawaii
Shore lines: Currents make it too treacherous for swimming, and you need four-wheel-drive to get to it. But if you are seeking solitude and beauty, this empty mile-plus stretch of white sand is worth the trip. That's Molokai you'll see directly across the channel, and, on a good day, a whale spouting. To reach the beach, head north from Lanai City on the jeep trail inappropriately called the Polihua Highway, passing the weirdly sculptured landscape of the Garden of the Gods, and kicking up so much red dust that, if you are in an open vehicle, you'll arrive looking like a sun-dried tomato.
Best Bunk: No hotel (in fact, nothing) is on Polihua, but the 11-room Hotel Lanai, about ten miles away in Lanai City, is among the most convenient to it. Built in the 1920s and retaining much of its pine-floored, clapboard-sided plantation style, it will give you much more of a taste of the Old Hawaii than the island's two far pricier Four Seasons properties at Koele and Manele Bay.
Hotel Lanai
Tel: 808 565 7211
Doubles from $139, including breakfast, two-day minimum";
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We know you're like us. We check the tabloids, but don't care what soap star picks up his own dry cleaning or what Golden Globe-winner cleans up after her Labradoodle. What does interest us, though, is which beaches the A-listers are heading to for vacation. Sure, partly it's because they often have the inside scoop on the super exclusive restaurants and most secluded stretches of snad ... but a little bit might be because it's fun to see how great (and occasionally not so great) they look in beachwear.
Click here to see where Hollywood's A-list soaks up the sun.
";
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We were so getting used to Jack Frost's pathetic efforts this winter. Then he stepped up to the plate and let us have it with snowstorms and temperatures in the single digits. And with our credit cards still recovering from the holidays, we thought there might be no respite—until, that is, we realized that the price to become a temporary castaway needn't break the bank.
Click here to check out some budget-friendly beaches.
";
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If you were a managing director at a top hedge fund, these would be our ten suggestions to relieve that bundle burning a hole in your pocket.
Click here for trips worthy of a fund manager.";
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Call it travel evolution. While some vacationers always turn to the Same Old year after year (Mickey!), the ever-curious vanguard are on the hunt for the Next. Sometimes their discoveries are exotic and far-flung, other times they are the once-beloved places seeing a renaissance.
Click here for the 10 places you'll be hearing about this year.
";
// END editorial data