AMPR’s President & CEO Andria Mitsakos spends more than 80% of her time on airplanes. When it comes to quick getaways, she knows that jetting away on just one flight means avoiding missed connections and long layovers.
 
Here are her Top Five favorite “one flight wonders”:
 
JAMAICA
Flight time from New York: 3hr 50min
Flight time from Miami: 1hr 40min
Accommodations: Geejam, a new, seven-room retreat where jungle meets beach.
Website: www.islandoutpost.com
Insider’s tip: Most don’t know that tourism in Jamaica originated in Port Antonio at the turn of the 19th century. Spend the day jet skiing along Portie’s wild coastline. Stop off at its seven beaches. Take a dip in the real Blue Lagoon.
 
NASSAU
Flight time from New York: 3 hours
Flight time from Miami: 1 hour
Accommodations: Marley Resort & Spa, just 16 rooms and run by Bob Marley’s daughter, Stephanie
Website: www.marleyresort.com
Insider’s tip: Get off the plane, and into a taxi and head straight to Good Fellows organic farm and market. Loads of fresh sandwiches, salads and other items are made right on the premises, in addition to an international array of gourmet items. Perfect for a beach picnic.
 
ST. MAARTEN
Flight time from New York: 4 hours
Flight time from Miami: 2 hours 50 minutes
Accommodations: Rent an apartment in Aquamarina, the island’s most chic real estate development.
Website: www.aquamarinasxm.com
Insider’s tip: Flights back to NY and Miami are generally in the afternoon, and the airport is five minutes away from Aquamarina, so on your departure day, get up early, check-in for your flight and then head back only 45 minutes prior to departure time. Another beach day earned!
Double insider’s tip: Hop a ferry to nearby Anguilla or St Barth. St Maarten is a great jumping-off point for the region.
 
BARBADOS
Flight time from New York: 5 hours
Flight time from Miami: 3 hours 30 minutes
Accommodations: The House, Barbados’s boutique hotel answer to the laid back for the jet set.
Website: www.eleganthotels.com
Insider’s tip: Needn’t go far for an amazing meal. Daphne’s, located adjacent to The House, is one of the most coveted restaurants in the Caribbean. Princess Diana frequented its London counterpart. 
 
PARIS
Flight time from New York: 7 hours 40 minutes
Flight time from Miami: 9 hours
Accommodations: Rent an apartment steps from Place Vendôme with Welcome2france.com; always less expensive than the city’s leading hotels.
Website: www.welcome2france.com
Insider’s tip: On Sundays, everything in Paris is closed, so head to Le Marais, a neighborhood in the city’s Jewish quarter, where everything is open. Book a gomage (body scrub) and steam at Les Bains du Marais. Jet lag: cured.

Quite possibly the two best words to string together in a single sentence are hidden and beaches.  This post at Bootsn’all lists seven of them…Cousine Island, Seychelles; Caprera Island, Sardinia, Italy; Whale Island, Vietnam;  Luskentyre Beach, Harris, Scotland; New Chums Beach, New Zealand; Playón de Mismaloya Beach, Mexico;  and Whidbey Island, Washington, USA.

Varsity Blues movies

Islands rank high in travel daydreams. Everyone has a list of islands. Travel and Leisure’s 2008 Best Islands is one of the most recent, but if you want to really delve into island dreams,  National Geographic Traveler’s Nov/Dec 2006 issue listed 111 of the best islands and archipelagos and ranked them in terms of sustainable stewardship.

It’s a little light on iconic tropical beaches-the 522 experts polled found that crowds and cruise ships can kill and island quickly. I don’t know how many of these picks have since been defiled by development (the article ran in 2006), but it is great daydream fodder. I’m clearly island deficient-of the 111 ranked, I’ve only seen 15. 

 Islands Magazine has several  island lists:  Check out the 23 best islands for snorkeling , the best islands for art , and, if you want to dream really big, the best islands to live on.

Though it’s less than an hour south of San Francisco and hour west of Silicon Valley, the stretch of Highway One along the California coast between San Francisco and Santa Cruz seems oddly remote. The drive passes windswept beaches, foggy canyons, and solitary lighthouses, but only one or two small towns.

Although sunbathing is likely to be out of the question, nature conspires to make this stretch of wild seaside particularly attractive in late winter. If your timing is right and luck is with you, you could score the California coast wildlife trifecta: elephant seals, gray whales, and monarch butterflies.

This is pup time at the 4,000 acre Ano Nuevo State Reserve elephant seal rookery. Visitors are greeted by a cacophonous symphony of squealing, grunting, and roaring elephant seals on ranger lead guided walks through the elephant seal breeding grounds during the breeding season (December through March.) The males battle for mates on the beaches and the females give birth to their young on the dunes. The elephant seals are unperturbed by humans, so the guided walks get remarkably close to these huge animals. [Read more →]

Island Magazine’s 30 best undiscovered beaches of 2007 (hey, where’s 2008?)has me pouting–I’ve only been to two. And 2006 wasn’t a better year for me–I’ve only seen two of those. Clearly, I need more beaches in my life.

The Brothers Bloom the movie

Anse Takamaka