Monhegan is often a tiny, rocky Island ten miles through the nearest mainland and scarcely a square mile in area. It’s accessible only by boat and there are no cars or paved roads about the Island. Given that long prior to the explorer John Smith visited it in 1614, it was known to Native Americans being a prime fishing region, and nowadays its economy is still ruled by those that make their living through the sea, fishing and lobstering. The year-round population has seldom exceeded 65 in recent times.

For much more than 100 years, Monhegan has been a summer haven for artists along with other visitors who appreciate its isolation, the beauty of its wilderness areas, its quiet relaxed atmosphere, and its unhurried pace.

2004 celebrated the 50th birthday for that Monhegan Associates, founded by summer resident Ted Edison to preserve and protect the wild lands of the island and its “simple, friendly way of existence.” Outside the village and harbor most of the island is wild and protected by the Associates. About 17 miles of trails, usually steep and strenuous, lead by means of wooded locations and over rocky ledges as much as the highest ocean cliffs on the Maine coastline.

Residents and vistors alike work to see how the wildlands will continue to be wild and how the fragile ecology will not be endangered. Please join us in this endeavor and exercise care, within the Village as around the trails and cliffs, to assure that future generations may possibly locate and enjoy the exact same attractions which have been so crucial to people who appreciate the Island these days. Don’t litter anywhere around the Island: “pack it in, pack it out!” Fire boxes are not for garbage and smoking just isn’t permitted outside the village.

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Anegada is definitely an island of coral sand, and its beaches are the loveliest inside the Caribbean. And they’re so deserted, probabilities are you won’t see one more set of footsteps on the sand. But it is possible to usually find a shady spot at a beach side bar to sit and sip a cool drink.

You no longer have to danger shipwreck to go to Anegada—it takes just eleven minutes to fly from Anegada’s Beef Island Airport. And in an additional minute, you’ll be out around the sandy roads headed for on the list of incomparable beaches.

A grand and graceful mansion located on Georgia’s Golden Isles on the state’s southernmost coastal island, Cumberland Island.

Cumberland Island was the 19th century retreat of Thomas and Lucy Carnegie who, in 1900, built Greyfield for their daughter, Margaret Ricketson. Converted to an inn during 1962 by her daughter, Lucy R. Ferguson, and family – who oversee the daily operation – Greyfield Inn exudes the welcoming atmosphere and charm of a family home.

The romantic hotel retains the original furnishings from the turn of the century alongside the added luxury of contemporary amenities, with the comfort of our guests in mind – it truly is the perfect getaway vacation.
In true southern fashion, we take great pride in our dining at Greyfield Inn. Each morning, awaken to a full and satisfying breakfast which includes fresh-squeezed orange juice and fruit, as well as eggs, pancakes or one of the Chef’s specialties. Mid-day, enjoy your day’s explorations in the Cumberland Island National Seashore with a satisfying picnic lunch.

During cocktail hour each evening on your getaway vacation, you are served hors d’oeuvres in the oceanfront resort Inn’s well-stocked bar while you share stories with fellow guests. Dinner is a casually elegant affair, served in the glow of candlelight. Our nightly entrees feature fresh and creative cuisine, accompanied, if you desire, by a selection from our wine cellar.

Cumberland Island is designated the Cumberland Island National Seashore by the National Park Service, and, as such, is preserved and protected from development.

The daily visitor rate is limited, ensuring a tranquil setting for the island’s population of wild horses, deer, bobcat, boar, turkeys, armadillos and birds.

The Georgia Coast Inn’s private compound includes more than 200 acres of pristine oceanfront hotel land devoted to guest use.

During your Georgia romantic getaway or honeymoon getaway, spend your days birding (over 300 species appear during the course of a year), swimming, biking, hiking, kayaking and fishing, or simply stroll our pristine, white sand beach and savor unparalleled privacy.

For reservations contact our office:
4 North Second Street ~ P. O. Box 900
Fernandina Beach, Florida 32035-0900
Toll Free 866-401-8581
(904) 261-6408
Email: seashore@greyfieldinn.com

The mutual respect and cooperation between Italy and the USA as well as the companionship between the two countries is particularly celebrated. Political leaders along with Broadway performers, champion high schools and college bands, folkloric groups and Italian delegations from assorted regions meet together to the procession with music, colorful costumes and floats striding along Fifth Avenue. WNBC broadcasts live in the states and on RAI International in Italy; Columbus Day Parade is a very nationalistic event.

A drove of classic and modern Maserati sports and luxury cars has guided New York City’s 65th annual Columbus Day Parade up Fifth Avenue on October 12, 2009. For more information about Columbus Day Parade Nyc 2009, see here.

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Can you duplicate the experience of “The Biggest Loser” without trainers Bob Harper and Jillian Michaels standing over you, ordering you to do one more rep or push-up?

NBC Universal thinks so.

Tuesday, the company’s “Biggest Loser” franchise unveiled two new ventures, both aimed at fans of the weight loss competition who watch the TV series each week and think, “I wish I could do that.”

One is The Biggest Loser Wii and Nintendo DS fitness games, offering individualized workouts.

The other is the Biggest Loser Resort at Fitness Ridge, a fitness spa located in southern Utah that has partnered with the NBC franchise.

Guests will spend up to $2,000 a week to have an experience that resort co-owner Tami Clark says mimics the life that contestants live on “The Biggest Loser,” including days filled with exercise, classes and adhering to a 1,200-calorie diet. (There’s little room for cheating as there are no vending machines or other food sources.)

Get more information on the resort at biggestloserresort.com.

(pop. 3,000)

serious waves and serious food

About halfway between San Francisco and Los Angeles, Cayucos is everything you want in a mellow beach town — an anomaly on the increasingly built-up coast. While the vibe is decidedly relaxed, two things get residents fired up: serious waves and serious food. Surfer Wade Rumble bridges both worlds as owner of Rogue Wave Cafe, where most mornings, after drying off his board, he sells fair-trade, organic coffee beans. Just off Highway 1, Cayucos requires a dedicated detour, which has helped it remain untouched.

“We have beautiful beaches and beautiful people,” says Christa Hozie, who runs Brown Butter Cookie Company with her sister Traci Nickson; the duo make super-addictive sea-salt-topped cookies. “I came to visit three years ago and thought it was such a magical place,” explains Hozie. Grace Lorenzen had a similar reaction. She moved back to the Central Coast from Seattle in 2002 and now manages the five-room Cass House Inn (from $165). The restored 1860s Victorian has a fitting soundtrack for the coastal town: the lulling surf. — Mario López-Cordero

LaHaie owns this flight-seeing service and lodge, located at the end of the road, 95 miles inside this 6 million acre national park, just 20 miles from the north face of the towering mountain.

Skyline Lodge is a cozy tri-level, solar powered building, nestled into the side of a mountain. It attracts independent travelers from around the world, ready to set off on a variety of adventures.

On a day in late August, lodge guests and employees gathered around the table at LaHaie’s solar-powered lodge to share their day’s experiences.

Outside, in the rapidly fading daylight, the silence was palatable. The mountainous terrain and deep valleys were ripe with the brilliant reds and yellows of autumn.

It was a scene that could have inspired the words of Robert Service’s poem, “The Spell of the Yukon” “It’s the beauty that thrills me with wonder. It’s the stillness that fills me with peace.”

Even now, LaHaie goes into visual overload when he flies visitors around the area.

“It’s standing in awe of the creation and realizing that it hasn’t changed much in the last 10,000 years, and you are hearing the same sounds,” he said. “It has that prehistoric feel, so much so that you wouldn’t be surprised to see a mastodon or a dinosaur standing up on the hills.

Skyline Lodge saw an increase in the number of guests this year, thanks to an expansion of accommodations. Other lodges in the area saw business decline, from 16 percent to 45 percent. LaHaie’s own air taxi business declined 20 percent in passenger traffic, he said.

“We started out with a lot of empty rooms, but were able to fill up the rest during the season,” he said in a telephone conversation Sept. 13, while he worked to close down his facilities for the season. “There is a lot of fear for next year too, that this is just the beginning of the slow season. But we get a lot of independent travelers, and being a small place like that, we are probably going to survive just fine.”

Skyline Lodge caters to those willing to pack their own lunches and explore the park on their own.

LaHaie said that he prefers “a bunch of people like myself, who I like to get up in the morning and have coffee with. If we talk to folks and think they are too high end maintenance, we suggest they try something else.”

Skyline’s accommodations include four cabins, each furnished with a double bed and two single sleeping pads in the loft. Bathroom and shower facilities in the main lodge are available for guest use.

Self-guided activities include day hiking in the Kantishna Hills, mountain biking on the park road and old mining roads, fishing in Wonder Lake or flightseeing over Denali and the Alaska Range.

Many guests just enjoy relaxing at the lodge with its collection of Alaskana books, and getting a firsthand view of the daily lives of Alaskan Bush pilots.

Most Skyline Lodge customers are avid adventurers who like to hike, “but would like to come home to a warm bed and good food,” rather than camp out in a tent, said employee Matt Unterberger. They are “independent travelers who don’t need their hand held at all times,” he said.

Rates are modest by comparison to nearby Camp Denali/North Face Lodge, Kantishna Roadhouse and Backcountry Lodge, which offer guests guided adventures, more luxurious accommodations and evening educational programs.

LaHaie grew up in Grand Rapids, Mich. and came to Alaska as a college student in the 1980s with a roommate whose brother, Bruce Lee, was a dog musher at Denali.

LaHaie spent the summer backpacking through the park.

“I was absolutely hooked, and realized flying was the only way to see the landscape,” he said.

He returned to Michigan to attend flight school, and later bought a plane with a friend and flew people around for gas money. He returned to Denali and worked his first winter for Dennis Kogl, who ran the dog kennels for the National Park Service.

He also did carpentry work and guiding trips, until the owner of the Kantishna Roadhouse suggested he start a fly-in service for the lodges. He gradually built up a clientele list, and by 2002 had built and opened the Skyline Lodge. Initially it was to be a home office base for employees for the air taxi. “Running the lodging was a second thought,” he said.

The air taxi service is LaHaie’s dream, even though, by his own admission “every landing is a lot of work. It’s not like flying out of a 4,000-foot airstrip,” he said.

LaHaie has had a few harrowing experiences, all of which he emerged from unscathed.

One was a trip in 1993, in the days before global positioning systems. LaHaie was flying back to Kantishna from Anchorage after dropping off clients and picking up groceries. The weather was clear on the south side of Denali, but fog rolled in on the north side. At one point, the weather went to complete whiteout conditions, but he was able to follow one clear column of space straight up to clear sky, and had enough gas to get back to the landing strip at the park entrance.

Nowadays, with GPS, radio phones and assorted other equipment, flying is a lot safer, he said.

Over the past few years, LaHaie has ferried hundreds of visitors through the park, including famed explorer, mountaineer and photographer Brad Washburn, and his wife, Barbara, the first woman to summit Denali.

“He was great,” said LaHaie. “The last time I saw him, he had just turned 90, and he said, ‘Me and the lady are starting to slow down a bit.’”

Washburn died of heart failure in January 2007 at a retirement home in Lexington, Mass.

LaHaie also has transported three surviving members of an ill-fated 1954 Denali expedition for a reunion in Kantishna. It was the first successful ascent of the South Buttress of Denali. Elton Thayer, the most experienced of the party, died in a fall from the mountain, but George Argus, Les Viereck and Morton “Woody” Wood all survived.

Skyline Lodge is already booking for the 2010 season. According to LaHaie, June is great for seeing more wildlife, before there is much traffic on the park road. Spring flowers are amazing and weather patterns are more stable than in later summer.

July is great for 24-hour daylight, and August offers the changing of the seasons, a chance of snow on the hills and even seeing the northern lights, he said.

Just how close does the wildlife get to the lodge? “We’ve had grizzlies right on the deck at the lodge,” he said.

More significant, however were the foxes, martens, wolves, magpies and ravens that camped out inside the main lodge last winter, after the double doors to the kitchen blew open.

Closing down the lodge for the season routinely includes putting plywood across the doors, but in the autumn of 2008, the staff was rushing out to attend an employee’s wedding and didn’t get the plywood up.

Climbers discovered the mess and alerted LaHaie in the early spring.

“We had to do a major cleaning when everything was still frozen,” he said.

Henceforth, that plywood will be up on the doors before they leave for the season, he said.

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While it may be one of the most prominent luxury islands out there, Barbados still hasn’t lost its exclusive appeal. Hundreds of celebrities still flock there each and every January, hoping to catch a ray or two of glorious winter sunshine. The 166-square-mile island is completely flat, meaning luxury hotels and fine-dining restaurants are aplenty along its stunning, white-sand coastline. Highly recommended is the Sandy Lane – Luxury Golf & Spa Resort at St James, the island’s most prestigious place to stay and much-publicized wedding venue to Tiger Woods a few years back.

Telluride provides some of North America’s most breathtaking ski and snowboard runs, but also a posh après-ski scene. Its vertical drop of more than 3,500 feet will give the seasoned veteran a true challenge, as will most of the resort’s runs — nearly 80% are ranked intermediate or advanced. During the spring skiing season, Telluride extends its afternoon hours to match the lingering sunlight, which means more time for springtime shredding.The resort also has 84 snowboard trails, and the region’s biggest snowboard park. If you really want to experience a high-end holiday, try renting one of the breathtaking private chalets and choosing from an impressive selection of amenities such as private chefs, in-house massage treatments and on-call drivers.

Los Angeles, USA

Chef: Hiro Urasawa
Urasawa not only presides over this tiny restaurant, which seats no more than 10 people, but the chef also prepares every dish and serves what many consider to be the finest sushi in the U.S. with ingredients flown in directly from Japan.