Lodging

San Sebastian, in the northern Basque area of Spain, is one of the country’s most beautiful resort towns. Its crescent beach lures Spain’s elite, who stay in glitzy high-rise hotels with ocean views, dine at Michelin-starred restaurants and generally live the Spanish high life. For those on a more modest budget,  Pension Bellas Artes, a 10-minute walk from the beach, is a less expensive and more personal option.

The Beach at San Sebastian

Owner Mari Carmen and her English-speaking daughter Leire welcome guests as though they were family, elevating an average hotel into something truly special. Each visit starts with information on the best restaurants and sights in the city, plus tips on getting around and hidden gems to check out. On special occasions, the staff will even go above and beyond with special treats like champagne toasts on New Years Eve.

The rooms are basic, but comfortable. Standard rooms include double beds with spacious bathrooms. The building has wi-fi and Leire will even lend you her laptop if you are traveling without one. She’ll also arrange tours, cabs, and restaurant reservations.

Double rooms start at 59 Euros in low season (October to April), 72 Euros in May and 79 Euros in high season (June to September and the holidays).

Address: C/ Urbieta, 64 1B, San Sebastian, Guipuzcoa
Telephone: 943 474 905
Email: info@pension-bellasartes.com

Photo Credit: Katie Hammel

Like most accommodations in the Cinque Terre, Arpaiuis not a full-service hotel. The Cinque Terre is a collection of five once-sleepy fishing villages that have now been discovered by tourists, but still retain much of their undeveloped charm. With the exception of Monterosso, none of the villages are open to cars, and there are no chain hotels.

Arpaiu is situated high above the sea in the village of Manarola. It’s a long climb up to the hotel but the hike is worth it. The rooms are sparsely decorated in Ikea furniture – you’ll find little more than a comfortable bed, dresser, safe, mini-fridge, and tv in each room – but visitors to the Cinque Terre don’t spend much time in their rooms.

Arpaiu view

With the time that guests do spend in their rooms here though, they’ll be delighted to see that Arpaui has one of the best views in town. Its position on the top of the cliff means guests can look out at the whole town below, and the sparkling blue Ligurian Sea in the distance. The shared balcony invites guests to linger over a bottle of Cinque Terre wine as they take in the sight of the setting sun.

Rates start at 90 Euros per night in high season. For those staying longer, there is also an apartment option, outfitted with a kitchenette.

Address:
Via Belvedere n. 196, Manarola 19010 (SP), Italy

Telephone: +39 340 6879732
Email: info@arpaiu.com

Photo credit: Katie Hammel

From Nancy D. Brown of What a Trip

View from Ko'a Kea Ocean View Room

Grab your iPod because the hip Ko’a Kea boutique hotel has docking stations in all of their rooms, in addition to flat screen TVs and Espresso coffee makers. But it’s not the L’Occitane amenities that bring you to this luxury hotel, opened April 2009, it’s the fact that it sits on Poipu beach.

Resting on the footprint of  the old Poipu Beach Hotel, this small-scale property takes over where Hurricane Iniki left off in 1992. Like the phoenix rising from the ashes, the Ko’a Kea name, meaning “white coral” in Hawaiian, is a tribute to the life-giving power of the coral reefs.

Ko'a Kea Ocean View Room #236

Of the 121 hotel rooms, you could reserve one of six ocean-front suites or an ocean-view suite. My room, #236, was an ocean view room that would typically rent for $600. Right now, the Kauai property is not fully occupied and is therefore offering $299 special rates. If you absolutely insist on an ocean front room, add $100 to the cost. If it were my money, I’d suggest booking the ocean view room and investing your saved dollars in a spa treatment.

Whether you’re here on a honeymoon or in Kauai on business, you won’t want to leave the fabulous bed. Take it from me; I’ve slept on a lot of hard mattresses and besides my flow bed, the Ko’a Kea bed is one of my absolute favorites.

For the honeymooners out there, I have no idea what the Ko’a Kea Signature Adventure Lovers Massage entails, but it sounds romantic. With my fair Norwegian skin, I’ll probably need the Sunburn Rescue Treatment.  Speaking of sunburns, the snorkeling at the Ko’a Kea hotel was better than our catamaran tour on the Napali coast. All sorts of brilliantly colored fish were spotted in front of the hotel, as well as a sea turtle. Guests can bring their own snorkel equipment or rent by the hour or day at the Ko’a Kea.

The Ko’a Kea’s website features special packages and promotions. For example, if you make a reservation between December 25, 2009 and January 4, 2010 you’ll be entered into a drawing to win a stay in 2010 equal to your stay during the holiday season. Check the website for details.

Ko’a Kea Hotel & Resort is a member of Preferred Hotels & Resorts. If you like free internet access, upgrades when available and late check out, be sure to sign up for the Iprefer Guest Benefit Program. This trip was hosted by the Kauai Visitors Bureau.

Photos courtesy of Nancy D. Brown

Ko’a Kea Hotel & Resort (808) 742-1344

2251 Poipu Road, Koloa, Hawaii 96756-9534

On the west end of St. Croix, just outside the town of Frederiksted is the Sand Castle on the Beach Resort, a gay-friendly hotel on one of the most charming stretches of sand in the Caribbean. The resort also has a pool just yards from the ocean, so you can enjoy the sunsets that the west side is famous for. The resort’s onsite restaurant, The Beach Side Cafe, is worth the trip alone. Enjoy a lazy brunch of steak and eggs and mimosas before lounging on the beach. And their dinner menu incorporates Thai, Indian and Italian flavors into the nightly creations. Sample fare: Austrian pumpkinseed salad, crab cakes and salmon pesto pasta.

Sand Castle on the Beach

With seven accommodation options, Sand Castle offers luxury villas and standard rooms. When you’re ready to leave the room, choose from hikes to tide pools, day sails to Buck Island, scuba diving, kayaking and more. Bonus: Rent snorkel gear to explore the offshore reefs. This is the protected side of the island, meaning that for most of the year, the waves and either small or nonexistent.

Beach Side Cafe

Sand Castle on the Beach will also help you plan your wedding, should you want a beach style affair. Ask about their special wedding and other packages.

Rates start at $109 per night during low season, and $149 during high season.

Call 800-524-2018 for more details or to book.

Special thanks to Sand Castle on the Beach for the sunny photos.

The 1920's lodge at Camp Richardson Resort.

Nature just seems larger up here. Tall trees. Mammoth mountains. And of course — big, beautiful Lake Tahoe.

Sprawling Camp Richardson fits right in. With 28 rooms in the lodge, 40 cabins, a seven-room inn, 300 campsites, a general store, two restaurants, a cafe/confectioner, a sport equipment rental center, and, don’t forget, the ice cream parlor.

This bustling metropolis in the woods is not for those seeking a quiet retreat in nature. Last weekend the place was mobbed with throngs of folks that appeared to be having the time of their lives.

A live band played classic rock tunes to a deck packed full of revelers and beyond on the beach you’d be hard pressed to find room to lay down a blanket.

The spacious cabins offer full kitchens.

The camp was built around the 1920’s lodge on 80 acres of waterfront land. Accommodations at the lodge are pretty spartan — cabins are roomier and have fireplaces or woodstoves and full kitchens. The Beachside Inn offers more amenities and is closer to the lake/action. I would stay far, far from the campsite, though. The sites are really jammed in, offering no privacy and plenty of noise.

There is a definite family vibe here. Kids eating ice cream, grandparents kicking back on Adirondack chairs, and whole families biking together on the excellent bike trail that runs right through the resort. Camp Richardson is great option for large groups and extended families. There are also organized activities for kids.

There is plenty to do from horseback riding and rock climbing to renting jets skis and kayaks. In winter, this is the place for cross-country skiing and sleigh rides.

If you visit, a stop at the ice cream parlor is a mandatory excursion, but be warned — the portions are as big as nature in Tahoe. Stick with a kids’ small…

A crowd of beachgoers at the marina.

Camp Richardson Resort

1900 Jameson Beach Road

South Lake Tahoe, CA 96158

(800) 544-1801

Photo credit: Lisa Dion

Lei making

For the most Hawaiian experience on Ka’anapali Beach, you need look no further than the Ka’anapali Beach Hotel on the beach in Ka’anapali, Maui, Hawaii.

The minute you walk into the lobby, you are treated as family and during your stay, you can embark on a journey to learn about Hawaiian culture. From the Ohana Welcome Breakfast to the Ukulele lessons to four different kinds of Lei Making classes, you have the opportunity to engage in Hawaiian culture while enjoying your vacation.  Read More »

The Seaside Inn is home to a British pub and looks out over Nantucket Sound.

Just a block from the homeaway.com cottage my family and i rented last month is the Seaside Inn, a beachfront hotel in Falmouth Heights.

The attractive shingle building with a landscaped courtyard and decks that overlook the Nantucket Sound caught my eye.

While having our own six-bedroom rental home was great, I wondered whether it wouldn’t be better to have crisp linens made up for us daily while we were out and about and a private place to retreat to if being surrounded by family got to be overwhelming.

Plus the Seaside Inn was slightly closer to the beach than our rental home. The annual Falmouth Road Race ends at its doorstep and it is also a front-row seat to the Cape Cod Marathon.

And they have a nice pub on the premises. Less then stellar weather caused us to spend a fair amount of the British Beer Company. It is the perfect English pub, a cozy fire on the hearth to stave of the chill outside and windows facing the windswept beach. I sampled a good clam chowder one night, a comforting crock of onion soup the next. Live music draws friendly crowds in the evening, most dressed in something with a Boston Red Sox logo, my family and the staff included.

Falmouth Heights beach is across the street.

Though it is a family inn, The Seaside Inn rooms would have been a little tight for my family of four and the kitchenette, which is great to have when traveling with young children, was super tiny. Staying here would have boosted my pub tab even higher! So drama or no family drama, we were better off in the rental. But, boy, those decks were alluring!

Rates vary by size and type of room (standard, ocean view, and decks), day of the week, and time of year but are still pretty reasonable for the superb location. The lowest rates are January through April and November through December ($59 to $89); May ($79 to $149); June through Labor Day weekend ($144 to $189); and September through October ($109 to $189).

The Seaside Inn

263 Grand Avenue

Falmouth, Ma 02540

(800)-827-1976

Photos by Dan Dion

My favorite spot in our homeaway.com rental cottage on Cape Cod, Ma.

Last fall I started organizing my family’s semi-annual reunion in on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. As kids, my three brothers and our cousins on both sides of the family summered “down the Cape,” and we share the same nostalgic Kodachrome memories — tanned brown bodies, living in bathing suits, riding bikes on sandy unpaved roads, cook outs, spectacular thunderstorms, and of course the beach that seemed to go on forever.

I can still hear the soundtrack — Elton John, Jim Croce, Linda Rondstadt, and James Taylor playing through tinny car radios…

In an effort to recreate those carefree days and warm summer nights for our own kids, I began my quest for a six-bedroom rental “cottage” (as they are all called, no matter the size) for our entire family. I narrowed it down to the town of Falmouth, and spent hours clicking through websites, finally settling on this house that I found on homeaway.com

Homeaway is well organized, thorough, and easy to navigate. You can click through for details, photos, a calendar showing availability, and contact info for the owners. Rates are posted up front, and you can conduct searches by date or rental rate.

A comprehensive list of amenities is included on each listing. It’s also easy to sort listings and there is a comparison feature. Some listings contain reviews.

The 14 of us converged at 52 Crescent Lane on the last week in June. At a spacious 3,400 sq. ft., including a vast but dank basement, there was plenty of room for our crew.

Highlights included a lovely front porch with ocean views and white wicker furniture, a fireplace, piano, double parlor, and Central Park directly across the street with a baseball diamond, basketball hoop and a huge expanse of lush green grass to kick a ball around, play Frisbee, or shoot off rockets.

Central Park in Falmouth was a huge asset to our rental.

Turnoffs were the abundance of paneling (every room), no bathtubs (an issue for those of us with babies), mildew in the upstairs bathroom, crappy mattresses in some of the rooms, a lame outdoor shower (basically just a hose), and a general need for updating and landscaping. There was a pervasive dumpiness — which actually has an upside in a beach house, you don’t worry about tracking sand everywhere.

My fantasy of recreating those endless summer days running barefoot through the surf with my cousins and playing tag in the dunes on wide open Cape Cod beaches was somewhat dampened. Not by the house, literally by the weather. You’ve heard of staycations, well this was a raincation.

But that’s where the fireplace, DVDs on laptops, ice creams trips to Falmouth Center, and most importantly the British Beer Company, the local pub on the corner came in.

And since it really didn’t rain all day, just was serially overcast (kind of like the summer in San Francisco that I was trying to escape), Central Park was totally key. In fact we all got a ton of exercise — biking, pedaling rented pedicabs, running or walking along the shore, shooting hoops, and kicking around the soccer ball.

Falmouth Heights Beach was visible from our cottage.

We actually did make it to the beach a few times, where the kids romped, jumped off the stone wall onto the sand, buried each other, and “took dips” in the salty Atlantic, forging new Cape Cod memories of their own. Mission accomplished.

Photos by Lisa Dion.

Maybe it’s the cherries. Maybe it’s the beaches of Lake Michigan. Maybe it’s the Sleeping Bear Dunes. Maybe it’s that when choosing to get away, people often prefer the vibe of a small town, and Glen Arbor, Michigan, offers that quaint, relaxed feel so desired for a summer escape.

The dunes of Glen Arbor, Michigan

If you’re looking for a quiet bed-and-breakfast that’s a short walk to the beach, as well as to several dining options, consider the Sylvan Inn, built in 1885 and located in the “downtown” area of Glen Arbor (which is no more than five blocks long, but, hey, that’s what makes it a small town.) With only fourteen rooms, the inn offers a quiet haven.

Sylvan Inn Bed-and-Breakfast

As enticing as the dinner options are—Western Avenue Grill creates dishes that complement the flavor of the fish, not overpower it—when my family visited last summer, we returned to Cherry Republic for at least one meal every day. They had Wi-Fi, which my dad and I loved for checking email. And their ice cream sundaes (we got the ginormous size that made me think of the sundae that Napoleon eats in “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure”) take a few friends to finish … as they should. But what makes Cherry Republic so addicting is that they put cherries in everything, from their chunky cookies to their barbecue sauce (delish and available online) and guacamole. When in Michigan, especially in Glen Arbor, there’s just something about the cherries.

Call 231-334-4333 for more details.

The first photo I took, and the second is courtesy of the Sylvan Inn.

Never before have I stalked anyone while drinking a pina colada. But there I was at Lorelei Cabana Bar and Restaurant in Islamorada, Florida, getting annoying close to a retired couple as they watched the sun set. Why? Because they were rocking in prime real estate: one of the gliders — with a table — that sat six. And the check was already paid, with the tip tucked under the salt shaker.

Lorelei Cabana Bar and Restaurant

Patience was rewarded. The couple left 20 minutes before the sky’s finale, leaving us to watch the sky fill with pinks and reds, and rock in the beachside glider as we debated how we wanted to eat our fish that night: over mixed greens or nestled inside a bun?

We were staying just across the street at the Islander Resort, a fixture of a motel at mile marker 82.1 along US 1. Whether you’re en route to Key West as we were during our road trip, or in search of a chill place for the family vacation, consider the Islander. It’s on the beach and the rooms have screened-in porches. Barbecue grills around the property make it easy and fun to feed the family and stay under budget.

The pool at the Islander Resort

As far as fun activities, the Islander offers bicycles, sailboats, kayaks, water trikes and snorkel gear. Choose to swim in the Atlantic Ocean or the resort’s pool. The Islander is also a great spot for weddings, or for hosting the wedding party should you want a Florida Keys wedding.

No matter what the reason is that brings you to Islamorada, just don’t be surprised if you get a little eager as dusk falls. The scenery is a big draw to the Florida Keys and everyone wants the best seats for the big show.

To find out more, call 305-664-2031.

Photos by Brooke Morton and courtesy of the Islander Resort.