Roatán Island, Honduras
Reef-dive with whale sharks.
Hours From New York: 5
DAYTIME TEMP: 82 °
TYPE OF VACATION: Romance
MODE:
Thirty-five miles off the coast of Honduras, Roatán Island is a throwback to the easygoing Caribbean-backwater vibe of the fifties and sixties. The lush island’s beaches are gleaming white, with none of the overcrowding of Mexico and Belize (only the West End and popular West Bay Beach are fully developed). Most of the tourists who do end up here are divers coming to explore the coral reef (the world’s second largest) and the Odyssey and the Prince Albert, two sunken ships off the coast (at $200 to $300 for a three- or four-day open-water dive course, Roatán is a damn cheap place to get certified). The best spots: Barbareta Island, a pristine reef off the East End where the rare whale shark can be sighted in January and February; Mary’s Place, a spectacular site with a 100-foot vertical drop and dramatic cracks in the reef; and Spooky Channel, home to giant groupers, parrotfish, eagle rays, and sea turtles. Stay on the north shore, at the Palmetto Bay Plantation (from $105 per night in season; palmettobayplantation.com), which is blessed with a mile of private beach and surrounded by lush jungle. The resort has an excellent dive staff on site, a pool with ocean views, and huge, modern villas with great sundecks.
Reykjavik, Iceland
Do shots with Björk.
Hours From New York: 5
DAYTIME TEMP: 35 °
TYPE OF VACATION: Female Bonding
MODE:
Fourteen years post-breakup, the Sugar Cubes (a.k.a. Björk’s first job) are getting back together for one concert on November 17. Icelandair will get you to Reykjavik in five hours. Before you head to the Laugardalshöll Arena (laugardalsholl.is), have a snack and a hearty Viking Tab on tap at the very hip Vegamöt Biströ & Bar. Afterward, go to Duus Hús, the local favorite bar (where the Cubes have been known to hang), and try a shot of brennivín—a kind of Icelandic schnapps brewed from potato pulp and affectionately known as Black Death. Stay at Room With a View, a colorful block of home-style apartments (from $130 per night per person; 354-896-2559; roomwithaview.com). Recover the next day steaming in the famous Blue Lagoon, 40 minutes south.
Beaver Creek, Colorado
Have a ski mountain to yourself.
Hours From New York: 5
DAYTIME TEMP: 25 °
TYPE OF VACATION: Male Bonding
MODE:
Book Trappers Cabin, a cushy, four-bedroom log home at 9,500 feet on top of Colorado’s Beaver Creek ski resort, and you’ll literally have a mountain to yourself—one with its own microclimate, to boot, which is why the snow here tends to be better and more abundant (it averages 25 feet per year) than other nearby resorts. Trappers is the only overnight mountaintop lodging in the area, and one of the few private cabins atop ski resorts in the U.S. (others include Game Creek at Vail and Tempter House in Telluride). You can ski in from Bachelor’s Gulch, or take a chauffeured Sno-Cat from the village. The lodge is outfitted with a pool table, fireplace, and an outdoor hot tub for post-ski relaxation, plus snowshoes and gear for tramping around the empty trails after nightfall. Meals are prearranged with your private chef, who specializes in gourmet southwestern dishes like grilled buffalo rib eye. He’ll return in the morning to make your breakfast—after which you get exclusive first tracks on nearby slopes, before the lifts open. Carve pristine powder, or tackle Beaver Creek’s Stone Creek Chutes, 180 expert acres of steeps and glades, with chutes 600 feet long and pitches of up to 45 degrees, all new for this winter. And with Trappers location near the summit, you get almost the entire mountain’s vertical for your solo run (from $2,415 per night for four, $3,911 for eight; 888-485-4317 or trapperscabincolorado.com).
Orange Beach, Alabama
Dig into the white sand of the Redneck Riviera.
Hours From New York: 5
DAYTIME TEMP: 61 °
TYPE OF VACATION: Family Friendly
MODE:
Having the word redneck assigned to a region might be a bit off-putting, but the nickname is more affectionate than disparaging, and it’s worked well to keep snobby New Yorkers from discovering the white beaches, clear, calm water, and mellow vibe of Alabama’s Gulf Coast. From September to May, when hotel and condo rates drop in conjunction with the water temperature, you’ll pretty much have this place to yourself. The area took a serious hit during Hurricane Ivan in 2004, but it’s rebuilding and then some. Rent a condo on Perdido Beach Boulevard (for listings, see gulfshores.com) or stay at the swank, Mediterranean-style Perdido Beach Resort (from $112; 800-634-8001; perdidobeachresort.com). Off the beach, go to Café Beignets in the Winn-Dixie shopping center on Perdido Beach Boulevard for blissful squares of fried dough smothered in confectioner’s sugar. Hit Doc’s Seafood Shack for oysters—raw, fried, or in po’boys. There’s not much nightlife temptation, but don’t miss the Flora-Bama, a raucous five-bar roadhouse that sits directly on the Florida-Alabama border. It’s famous for its sweet but deadly Bushwacker cocktail and its annual mullet toss (the fish, not the haircut), which takes place in April when hundreds gather to throw the finny bodies across the state line.
Anguilla
Try for par on the newest Norman course.
Hours From New York: 5
DAYTIME TEMP: 80 °
TYPE OF VACATION: Male Bonding
MODE:
Until now, there’s been little quality golf in the Caribbean, and on the tony West Indian islands of St. Barts and Anguilla, there is none. But the November opening of the new Temenos Golf Club on Anguilla—five hours from New York via either San Juan or St. Martin—will change all that. The new establishment, which will have a 28,000-square-foot club house, is part of Anguilla’s much grander St. Regis Resort project—which will ultimately include nearly 100 oceanfront homes, villas, and estates when finished in 2008. Designed by Greg Norman, the course is not only Anguilla’s first, but one of the sole pro ranges in the entire Leeward Islands chain. The course is accessible but challenging, with a pair of holes directly on the sea, including killer No. 10, which has a stream on one side, a lagoon on the other, and sand dunes all around. Follow your game with dinner at the venerable Malliouhana resort, whose French restaurant—overseen by the Michelin-heavy Michel Rostang—and 25,000-bottle wine cellar are the best in Anguilla (264-497-6111). Or try Tasty’s (South Hill; 264-497-2737), a simple aqua-colored joint run by former Malliouhana chef Dale Carty, who serves the local favorites of his youth: goat curry, conch salad, and chicken stew. Stay at one of Temenos’ ultramodern villas (for tens of thousands a week), or the more wallet-friendly Kú (from $160; 800-869-5827 or ku-anguilla.com), the year-old, 27-suite resort from the owners of ultraluxe Cap Juluca.
Barnard, Vermont
Get primo atmosphere at $100 a night.
Hours From New York: 4.5
DAYTIME TEMP: 36 °
TYPE OF VACATION: Romance
MODE:
Most of the New England hotels that answer the “Where’s a cushy, cozy, romantic inn?” question are priced upwards of $300 a night for the most basic rooms. But in the bucolic town of Barnard, Vermont, the three-room 1840s Fan House, so named for the fans carved in the wood frames over each window, offers a shockingly high standard of hospitality (handmade lamps by Simon Pearce, Anichini bed linens, Gobelin tapestries on the wall, Bulgari bath amenities) for just over a hundred dollars a night. Hiking, ice skating, snowshoeing, and massages in your room (particularly nice in the fireplace suite) can all be arranged, and the shops and restaurants of Woodstock and the artisan studios of Simon Pearce, Charles Shackleton, and Miranda Thomas are all within a 30-minute drive, tops. You’ll return to a fire roaring in the living room and a mug of hot apple cider prepared by owner Sara Widness, who used to work in New York handling public relations for upscale travel clients like the Orient-Express and who seems to know instinctively when to welcome you and when to leave you alone. With the money you save on lodging, splurge on dinner just down the street at the Barnard Inn Restaurant (802-234-9961), noted for its local lamb with a Zinfandel reduction—and its rave review in the Boston Globe. Rooms start at $130 including breakfast (802-234-6704 or thefanhouse.com).
Austin, Texas
Settle into a spa with southern hospitality.
Hours From New York: 4.5
DAYTIME TEMP: 60 °
TYPE OF VACATION: Female Bonding
MODE:
With so many spas in New York, you might think it nutty to fly three hours for a deep-tissue massage. But the Lake Austin Spa Resort in Texas, where ladies with big hair and big diamonds check in for healthy living, great services, and the chance to get all Oprah in poolside cabanas with their pals, is worth it. Sure, there are bits that might feel silly to a cynical New Yorker: staffers with warm, sugary drawls (“It’s all about YEW!”) and the laminated cards that turn up at bedtime featuring whimsical watercolors and aphorisms such as “I like myself!” and “I am at peace with my sexuality.” But the weather is caressing and balmy, and there’s something uniquely curative about the space, the quiet, and that very big sky. There’s a mostly empty lap pool in an open-sided barn, with a clear view through a garden down to the glassy surface of the lake. The exercise program accommodates all levels (and of course comes with lots of affirmation), and the top-notch spa services (try the Lake Breeze facial) in the cushy, chintzy, handmade-quilt-ish spa will make you wonder why you ever patronized those austere, snooty urban spas in the first place (from $1,455 for three nights; 512-372-7300 or lakeaustin.com).
Cabarete, Dominican Republic
Windsurf in a rum- scented paradise.
Hours From New York: 4
DAYTIME TEMP: 77 °
TYPE OF VACATION: Adventure
MODE:
Years ago, the story goes, a legendary windsurfer who called himself Doctor Fun happened on Cabarete’s protected bay and constant trade winds and declared it the next windsurfer paradise (it’s good for kite-surfing too). Fly direct from Newark to Puerto Plata in under four hours on Continental. If you catch a morning flight, cab straight to the beach. Ask for the Happy Surf outpost, and rent one of the Easter-egg-colorful Windsurfers lined up on the beach. (Classes for beginners are available.) After a stint, have a fresh-fruit plate at one of the beach bars or indulge in a cheap massage or a Dominican cigar. Then flag down one of the hundreds of motorcycles that troll the center of town and, for 50 cents, go just about anywhere. La Otra Cosa is an excellent open-air French restaurant (809-571-0897); Ali’s Surfcamp is a terrific, reasonably priced barbecue place in a swamp (809-571-0753). Stay at one of Natura Cabañas’ ten lovely thatched huts, each different, most with kitchens (from $160 for two; 809-571-1504 or naturacabana.com). The nearby beach is breathtaking and almost empty, not counting the scrappy hut where a local will machete a coconut in half and pour in rum (skip the ice).
North Adams, Massachusetts
Be avant- avant-garde.
Hours From New York: 4
DAYTIME TEMP: 37 °
TYPE OF VACATION: Family Friendly
MODE:
Three years ago, Christoph Büchel hacked through two floors of a New York gallery to make a kind of conceptual fun house through which visitors crawled while thinking about things like Armageddon. Now, in his first major U.S. museum installation, the Swiss conceptual artist is taking over Mass MoCA’s football-field-size Building 5 and building an intricate, hyperrealistic soundstage called “Training Ground for Democracy” (think Dogtown meets the fun house). The installation, built inside shipping containers and trailers, will be a series of rooms, each mimicking a social institution like a movie theater, a pharmacy, and something called a “psychological operations vehicle.” It opens December 16 ($10; massmoca.org). Afterward, return to reality with a little shopping and eating in North Adams. Mull the mind-expanding exhibit over a plate of swordfish with butternut-squash risotto at Gideon’s (413-664-9449). Stay the night at the Porches Inn, a hotel composed of six Victorian houses that have been converted into comfortably plush guest rooms (Büchel had nothing to do with it) right across from the museum (from $170; 413-664-0400 or porches.com).
Greensboro, North Carolina
Furnish the house on the cheap.
Hours From New York: 2
DAYTIME TEMP: 49 °
TYPE OF VACATION: Female Bonding
MODE:
It’s not exactly a romantic, relaxing getaway, but if you’re redoing the apartment or furnishing a second house, consider this an investment trip that can pay for itself. North Carolina’s famous factory outlets are open to the public and charge at least 30 percent (and sometimes up to 70 percent) under retail. The best time to go is late October, when the display samples are up for grabs at a mere pittance and the weather is cool but not freezing. Every chain hotel imaginable has a Greensboro outpost, but for something a little swankier, book the O.Henry (from $229; 877-854-2100 or ohenryhotel.com). Bring your tape measure and camera, and make the immense Furnitureland South in Jamestown (336-841-4328) your first stop for its mind-blowing breadth of brands. Across the street, the more upscale Boyles (336-812-2200) stocks designs from lines like Ralph Lauren and Gloster. In High Point, go to Stickley (336-887-1336) for furniture inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright’s Prairie designs. Return to Greensboro for dinner: caramelized pork and whole flounder at Saigon (336-294-9286). The next day, drive to Resource Design in Hickory (828-322-3161) for textiles from Nina Campbell, Brunschwig & Fils, and Cowtan & Tout. Replenish with a fried-oyster salad at Youssef 242 (828-324-2005).