Nicotine's World of Fun

Myrtle Beach, South Carolina

Birthplace of Wheel of Fortune star Vanna White, MYRTLE BEACH is a brazen splurge of seaside fun, an unmitigated stretch of commercial development twenty miles down the coast from the North Carolina border at the center of the sixty-mile "Grand Strand." Predominantly a family resort, it's packed fit to burst during mid-term vacations with leering, jeering students in fluorescent beachwear – if you've seen the movie Shag, you'll know what to expect. Fans of crazy golf, water parks, factory outlet malls, funfairs and parasailing will be in heaven, and the beach itself isn't bad. The widest stretch is at North Myrtle Beach, a chain of small communities among which Ocean Drive is the center.

Miami, Florida

Far and away the most exciting city in Florida, MIAMI is a stunning and often intoxicatingly beautiful place. Awash with sunlight-intensified natural colors, there are moments – when the neon-flashed South Beach skyline glows in the warm night and the palm trees sway in the breeze – when a better-looking city is hard to imagine. Even so, people, not climate or landscape, are what make Miami unique. Half of the two million population is Hispanic, the vast majority Cubans. Spanish is the predominant language almost everywhere – in many places it's the only language you'll hear, and you'll be expected to speak at least a few words – and news from Havana, Caracas or Managua frequently gets more attention than the latest word from Washington, DC.

Cancun, Mexico

Cancún is marginally closer to Miami than it is to Mexico City, and if you come on an all-inclusive package tour the place has a lot to offer: striking modern hotels on white-sand beaches; high-class entertainment including parachuting, jet-skiing, scuba-diving and golf; a hectic nightlife; and from here much of the rest of the Yucatán is easily accessible. For the independent traveller, though, it is expensive, and can be frustrating and unwelcoming. You may well be forced to spend the night here, but without pots of money the true pleasures of the place will elude you.

There are, in effect, two quite separate parts to Cancún: the zona commercial downtown – the shopping and residential centre which, as it gets older, is becoming genuinely earthy – and the zona hotelera, a string of hotels and tourist amenities around "Cancún island", actually a narrow strip of sandy land connected to the mainland at each end by causeways. It encloses a huge lagoon, so there's water on both sides.

Kaanapali, Hawaii

There had never been a town at Ka'anapali, just a small plantation wharf served by a short railroad from the sugar mill at Lahaina. What Ka'anapali did have, however, was a superb white-sand beach – far better than anything at Lahaina – backed by a tract of land that was ripe for development and more than twice the size of Waikiki.Ka'anapali is a pretty enough place, with its two rolling golf courses and sunset views of the island of Lanai filling the western horizon, but it's only worth staying here if you know you're happy with the same bland lifestyle you could find at a hundred tropical resorts around the world.

As for Ka'anapali Beach, it's divided into two separate long strands by the forbidding, 300-foot cinder cone of Pu'u Keka'a, known as the Black Rock. The sand shelves away abruptly from both sections, so swimmers soon find themselves in deep water, but bathing is usually safe outside periods of high winter surf. The rugged lava coastline around the Black Rock itself is one of the best snorkeling spots on Maui.

Nonguests of Ka'anapali's hotels are free to use the main beach, but there are also a couple of public beach parks just around the headland to the south. Both Hanaka'o'o and Wahikuli are right alongside Hwy-30; swimming is generally safer at Wahikuli, but the facilities and general ambience are more appealing at Hanaka'o'o.

Honolulu, Hawaii

Stretching for around a dozen miles along the southern coast of Oahu, and home to more than 400,000 people, HONOLULU is by far Hawaii's largest city. As the site of the islands' major airport and of the legendary beaches and skyscrapers of WAIKIKI, it also provides most visitors with their first taste of Hawaii. Many, unfortunately, leave without ever realizing quite how out of keeping it is with the rest of the state.The setting is beautiful, right on the Pacific Ocean and backed by the dramatic pali (cliffs) of the Ko'olau mountains. Downtown Honolulu, centered around a group of administrative buildings that date from the final days of the Hawaiian monarchy, nestles at the foot of the extinct Punchbowl volcano, now a military cemetery. It's a manageable size, and a lot quieter than its glamourous image might suggest. Immediately to the west is livelier Chinatown, while the airport lies four or five miles further west again, just before the sheltered inlet of Pearl Harbor

San Diego, California

Relatively free from smog and byzantine freeways, SAN DIEGO, set around a gracefully curving bay, represents the acceptable face of southern California. The second biggest city in California may be affluent and conservative, but it's also easygoing and far from smug. Although it was the site of the first mission in California, the city only really took off with the arrival of the Santa Fe Railroad in the 1880s, and in terms of trade and significance it has long been in the shadow of Los Angeles. However, during World War II the US Navy made San Diego its Pacific Command Center, and the military continues to dominate the local economy, along with tourism.

Boracay Island, Philippines

White Beach, Boracay's biggest tourist attraction, stretches some four kilometers on the western side of the island, mostly within the barangay of Balabag. It is largely because of the pristine, white powdery sand of White Beach and the crystal-clear blue water of the surrounding sea that Boracay is often called "the world's most beautiful tropical island."

Key West, Florida

One more possible 'district' can be found just at the entrance to Key West. It's a small island called Stock Island, reportedly where the islands' cattle and other stock were kept many years ago. Today the 'stock' on Stock Island includes charter boats awaiting fishing fans, boaters and visitors who want to get a look at the crystalline waters that surround the islands. From here, too, you can take a ferry to what might be called another 'district' of Key West, the Dry Tortugas islands, where historic of Fort Jefferson was built. It was once a prison housing Dr. Samuel Mudd, who unknowingly treated John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of Civil War President Abraham Lincoln. Mudd spent years alone in this fortress prison. At the city's port, there's an intriguing outdoor-indoor market where you can buy everything from handmade jewelry to hand-rolled cigars. Above it all shines a relentless sun, winding up each day with a festival known as Sunset at Mallory Dock. The daily celebration is viewed by many along with juggler/street-performer/animal-trainer/jewelry-sellers. It is an eclectic gathering at which all and sundry join in a celebration of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness—which has an amazing array of definitions here in the nation's southernmost city.

Sydney, Australia

It is as beautiful city like any in the world, with a setting that perhaps only Rio de Janeiro can rival: the water is what makes it so special, and no introduction to Sydney would be complete without paying tribute to one of the world's great harbours. Port Jackson is a sunken valley which twists inland to meet the fresh water of the Parramatta River; in the process it washes into a hundred coves and bays, winds around rocky points, flows past the small harbour islands, slips under bridges and laps at the foot of the Opera House. If Sydney is seen at its gleaming best from the deck of a harbour ferry, especially at weekends when the harbour's jagged jaws fill with a flotilla of small vessels, racing yachts and cabin cruisers, it's seen at its most varied in its lively neighbourhoods. Getting away from the city centre and exploring them is an essential part of Sydney's pleasures.It might seem surprising that Sydney is not Australia's capital: the creation of Canberra in 1927 – intended to stem the intense rivalry between Sydney and Melbourne – has not affected the view of many Sydneysiders that their city remains the true capital of Australia, and certainly in many ways it feels like it. The city has a tangible sense of history: the old stone walls and well-worn steps in the backstreets around The Rocks are an evocative reminder that Sydney has more than two hundred years of white history behind it.

Santa Barbara, California

The six-lane coastal freeway that races past oil wells and offshore drilling platforms slows to a leisurely pace a hundred miles north of Los Angeles at SANTA BARBARA. Beautifully sited on gently sloping hills above the Pacific, the town's ubiquitous red-tiled roofs and white stucco walls of its low-rise buildings form a backdrop to some fine Spanish Revival architecture, while the golden beaches are wide and clean, lined by palm trees along a curving bay. Although a large portion of downtown has been replaced by a vast, upscale shopping mall, Santa Barbara has managed to retain its quaintly upscale yet relaxed character.