What I remember most was the retreat of city lights, the lack of cellphone reception and the kind of stillness that makes the hours seem to hold more time.

It’s not every day that you step out from a sunset surf session and straight into a jungle habitat of howler monkeys dangling in leafy guarumo trees.

Like a siren, the beautiful little island called to us. And so we swam, like crazed Olympic sprinters, from a cobblestone Italian town square to a serene island monastery in the middle of glittering Lago d’Orta.

You don’t have to make a reservation to sample the best in local cuisine.

From Model T’s to “Thelma & Louise,” the culture of driving has fueled our imagination and become part of our history. Here are 25 facts about the American road.

The Mid-Market/Western SoMa neighborhood in San Francisco is on the upswing; Twitter is even moving in.

The small hotel cultivates a “feel like a local” charm.

Rye has emerged as a go-to craft spirit of the moment.

Winemakers seeking some pop are canning wine.

It’s not often that a hike begins with a ceremonial chant.

Once reviled by park rangers as an unfortunate distraction, cellphones are lately being embraced by national, state and local parks as a way to educate a more connected public.

As the lineup of private jets at the tiny airport will attest, summer is when the mountain town’s festival scene brings in celebrities of almost every category.

In old Hong Kong, around the intersection of Queen’s Road and Hollywood Road, the Sheung Wan neighborhood has found new life with a bumper crop of restaurants, galleries and night-life spots.

A serene, sleek hotel in Hong Kong’s central business district.

Upcoming events, openings, and news in 2011.

Napa’s downtown stretch along the riverfront has roared to life, opening the field for some heavy-duty entrants in the world of fine dining.

Under a lacy green canopy of giant redwoods, we were Lilliputians in a Brobdingnagian world.

Though the Japantown area of San Francisco has remained largely static since the 1970s — stretches of concrete, blocky mini-malls and lots of sushi restaurants — a new wave of Japanese popular culture, from monster movies to Lolita dresses, has hit the area, thanks to the recent arrival of New People, a five-level, glass-walled, 20,000-square-foot shrine to all things Japanese.

What do people take home from Hawaii? Most likely, memories: a bite of fresh pineapple, a swim in the ocean, a Technicolor sunset. Typical souvenirs — T-shirts, a bouncy hula-doll figurine, a shell necklace — hardly do the natural beauty of the islands justice.

When it comes to winemaking these days, Willamette Valley wineries are on the leading edge of sustainable, eco-conscious practices.

Unlike most adventure travel trips, during which guides don’t typically invite guests to do the cooking, the goal on these trips is to give participants access to cutting boards, knives and hot coals, and, “have them go at it.”

What began as a matter of practicality for the beach boys started popping up in its modern form as a full-fledged sport in the past 5 to 10 years; there are now stand-up paddleboarding competitions all over the world.

Chinatown is livelier than ever, thanks to the street cred that has come along with the neighborhood’s latest reinvention as an arts hub and a gritty, up-and-coming place to shop and eat.

Cherimoya, calamansi, rainbow papaya. Puna ricotta, poha berries, lilikoi. Lava salsa, dinosaur kale, Hamakua mushrooms. This is the exotic-food litany on the lips of pilgrims who go to the Hilo Farmers Market, held twice a week on the lush eastern side of the Big Island.

On a trip to El Salvador in March, I encountered tiny, colorful inns overlooking the Pacific, friendly local surfers, fishermen trolling along mangrove-lined channels, and family-owned waterfront restaurants specializing in fresh ceviche and grilled giant shrimp.

A new generation of Indian entrepreneurs and leaders is making its influence felt in tourism, bringing a sensitive, updated sensibility to hospitality, along with a renewed emphasis on authenticity.

Perched at 5,970 feet, the tower peers out for miles in every direction across the pine-covered slopes and rocky peaks of the eastern Sierra Nevada in Northern California, still capped with snow in the middle of May.

The Hood Canal is a glitteringly beautiful 60-mile-long fjord and the western waterway of Puget Sound, and it sits about an hour and a half outside Seattle.

In the last 10 years, Ultimate Frisbee has become one of the world’s fastest-growing sports.

The tropical shores of Hainan Island are luring surfers, golfers and resort developers in the market for a little sun and fun.

Perched at 6,300 feet and sandwiched between two striking red-rock mesas, the New Mexico town of Jemez Springs has long been a place of uncommon natural beauty and a refuge for all manner of pilgrims.

Though just a short ferry hop from Vancouver across Howe Sound, the 50-mile stretch of craggy forest and marine parks that makes up the Sunshine Coast feels far away from the city’s action.

Swimming-oriented tours and vacations have been around for a while, but lately there are new trips of a single day up to a whole week for the recreational swimmer.

Last summer, an exploratory group of five hikers walked among the majestic, jagged limestone peaks of Sutjeska National Park, eventually ascending to the top of 7,828-foot Maglic, the highest mountain in the country of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

This resort town of 5,500 people has lately schussed its way into a modern era of solar-electric ski buses and expansive, high-tech snowmaking.

Beyond the sunbathers, cervezas and spring break debauchery so conspicuously on display in Cancún and Cozumel, Mexico offers a lesser-known adventure experience.

As the lyrics say: “It’s fun to stay at the Y.M.C.A.”

From the South Pacific to the Caribbean, coral reefs are bearing the brunt of climate change. Now, many in the tourist industry are trying to halt the damage.

Lush green vineyards carpet the valley floors around Cape Town.

Opened on New Year’s Day in Toledo, the southernmost region of Belize, the Cotton Tree Lodge has all the hallmarks of environmental sustainability: an off-the-grid existence, solar power, an organic garden and a reforestation program that plants teak and mahogany trees.

A new artistic sensibility comes to this rugged resort town.

In Chinatowns across the country, unusually authentic walking tours reveal a bit of real life off the beaten tourist path.

As exotic destinations become more commonplace and travelers seek out more unusual and broadening experiences, nonprofit groups are responding.

As Miami whirls into action for the fifth annual Art Basel Miami Beach next month, the Wynwood district across Biscayne Bay is heading into the studio.

This is the British Columbia of popular imagination, all steep-walled mountain valleys and spectacular snow-fed lakes, but with a bonus: a wine region aspiring to hold its own with the famous California valleys to the south

Once a far-flung hideaway for honeymooners and reclusive figures like Marlon Brando, Bora Bora is now surprisingly accessible, thanks to new airline routes from the United States and a wave of luxury resorts opening this year.

Britain’s only natural thermal springs finally reopened to the public on Aug. 7 after a nearly 30-year hiatus in the form of the Thermae Bath Spa.

Alaska in summer is the Land of Everything Midnight Sun, from microbrews to marathons.

“Canned hunting”—the sport killing of animals bred in captivity and released into enclosed surroundings with no chance of escape—seems to generate controversy wherever it is practiced.

Treebones Resort embodies the natural beauty and off-the-grid living that have long characterized Big Sur.

Alaska in winter is an intimidating prospect: one characterized by frigid temperatures, long nights and forbidding landscapes blanketed in snow and ice.

Quiet and rugged, Lanai is a small town that is an island.

Since the National Academy of Sports Medicine, a nonprofit association of sports trainers and therapists, began Body Map last year, hundreds of professional athletes have used it to help identify muscular weaknesses in an effort to ease their aches and pains and to prevent season-ending injuries.

A relatively new phenomenon at aquariums in the United States allows the public into the underwater world behind the glass on a pay-to-dive basis.

Despite having two national historic districts within its borders, the West Side of Providence has long been a run-down area, its crumbling 18th- and 19th-century Victorians and magnificent mill buildings cut off from the rest of downtown by a noisy swath of Interstate 95. But artists from elsewhere in the city have flocked to the neighborhood in recent years.

With Chinese from all over the country flocking to this city to fuel its booming economy, Guangzhou is pushing to reclaim its roots as the major trade and manufacturing center of China.

In several places across the nation, it is possible to rent hybrid gasoline-electric cars or cars that run on electricity, natural gas or even vegetable oil.

It’s a pulse-pounding 1,500-foot elevation gain up Waihee Ridge.

Plenty of snow, plenty of choices and lovely views of the lake.

To mainstream surfers, the logic of New England winter surfing is akin to that of opening a lemonade stand in Siberia in the middle of January.

The 40-island archipelago of Turks and Caicos in the British West Indies possesses a physical beauty that, until the past decade or so, had gone largely unnoticed.

On a balmy Saturday morning, it’s practice as usual for the New York Outrigger Club.

It is Monday morning at the neighborhood bagel shop, and I catch someone’s eye. Why does he look familiar? As our orders make their way through the assembly line, we finally figure it out: afternoon pick-up soccer the weekend before.

No predawn lift lines, no skiers chomping at the bit to hit fresh powder, no frenzy on the slopes.

When I first started going along with my boyfriend to his family’s cottage on Lake George, I noticed that everyone in the family had a particular way of crossing the lake.

Global Positioning Systems are new must-haves for hikers and other outdoor enthusiasts.