Top Travel Days of 2025, Beach Day in Bermuda
If you live on the East Coast, you know that Bermuda is only a two-hour flight from Boston, New York, Philly, and DC. But it’s not until you step off the plane on this island located 600 miles due east of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, that you fully understand the allure. Plant your feet into the soft pink sand on one of the renowned South Shore beaches like Horseshoe Bay and you can feel your body de-stress with every footprint. The shoreline is exquisite. Beaches are buttressed by jagged cliffs to create sheltered bays ideal for a dip. This was certainly true of the private beach the Hamilton Princess shuttled our family to in late May on a blissful 4-night getaway to the island. Just down the road from Horseshoe Bay, the pink sands provided the perfect welcome mat and the ocean water was already warm for the summer season.
It had been over a dozen years since I stayed at the Hamilton Princess, the grand dame of Bermuda, which first opened its doors in 1898. And wow did it change! The new owners are avid art collectors, and their impressive bounty of works cover the walls of the resort and lead to massive sculptures outside including a bronze gourd by Yayoi Kusama and a two-story high Mickey Mouse work by KAS. We did a docent-led hour-long tour of the collection and saw works by Picasso, Magritte, Julian Opie, Banksy, Ai Weiwei, numerous Warhol’s, and many others.
The resort also added a heavenly infinity pool overlooking the Hamilton Harbor, and two wonderful restaurants on either side of the resort. It’s hard to tear yourself away from the infinity pool, but you’ll be justly rewarded if you take the free shuttle to their private beach about 20 minutes away. An added bonus is that the beach has waiter service and food options, which makes relaxing that much more effortless.
It was wonderful to return to the warmth of Jamaica with the family in December after a 3-year absence. Having been to the island over a dozen times, I don’t feel the need to walk up 
Pent up for months due to the pandemic lockdown, come mid-July, we were ready to leave the house and head to Eastham on the Cape for a week. We rented a cottage down the block from the bayside Thumpertown Beach, where we would spend most afternoons and evenings swimming in the calm surf and watching the sunset. In the mornings we would bike to Nauset Light Beach and on the up-and-down 
In April, I crashed my car and had to deal with an unexpected, exorbitant tax bill. May brought the death of Lisa’s dad, Ken. Then in early June, we learned that one of our trusted tour operators that we like to use for Africa trips had just went bankrupt. Needless to say, by the time I reached the waters of Lake Temagami in late July, my nerves were shot. All I wanted to do was jump in the water and swim. And for 3 days, that’s primarily what I did. Dove in the heavenly waters of this vast lake and swam free crawl, backstroke, elementary backstroke, underwater, to a small island directly across from us. It was a perfect cleansing of my body in these pristine waters, happily washing away the year’s stress with each stroke.
Located at the southern tip of a long, narrow peninsula, Placencia attracts sun worshippers from all over the globe with more than 16 miles of white sand. If you tire of the beach, a popular day trip is a half-day kayak through the mangroves of Monkey River. Crocodiles, howler monkeys, even manatees can be spotted here. A popular beachfront restaurant in town is De’Tatch Seafood Beach Bar, where you dine on shrimp burritos or fish tacos. If you’re lucky enough to snag one of the six beachfront cabanas, all air-conditioned, at 
Best known for the Cape Cod National Seashore, Cape Cod is also riddled with more than 300 ponds. These freshwater swimming holes are hidden in the landscape, far from the crowds at the beach, and a joy to swim in on a hot afternoon. However, they are tricky to find. Unlike bay and ocean beaches, where signs point you in the right direction, towns on the Cape like to keep these warm freshwater locales a secret. Many of these ponds have limited resident-only (with requisite sticker) parking. Fortunately, they are near town centers, so you can grab a bike and go have a dip. For my top 10 favorite swimming holes on the Cape, replete with necessary directions, have a look at this 
Six miles south of Benbow, in Leggett, California, Pacific Coast Highway or Hwy 1 comes to an abrupt end. Highway 101 will pick up the slack and hug the shoreline north of Arcata on a picturesque drive of headlands rising from the Pacific as you drive to Orick. But that still leaves 80 miles of wilderness shoreline, not easily accessible from any highway. Called the Lost Coast, it is the longest undeveloped coastline in the continental United States. Yesterday, we took the twisting and turning Bryceland-Thorn Road from Redway to the remote village of Shelter Cove. At this small coastal community, houses hug the shoreline backed by flanks of forest and high headlands that make up the