Keeping cool under the shade of the acacia (Weststock)
4. LAKE MANYARA TREE LODGE Lake Manyara, Tanzania
By the time you arrive at Tanzania's Lake Manyara Tree Lodge, in Lake Manyara National Park, jostling in a truck for two hours after the 40-minute flight west from Arusha, you're likely to have encountered elephants, Cape buffalo, and the legendary climbing lions that ascend umbrella acacias to escape rapacious tsetse flies. So when lodge manager Frances Majambele announces visitor rule number one—"No one walks alone after dark without an askari," an armed guard—you'll pay attention. Hyenas frequent camp almost every night, and elephants, leopards, and lions are common—but then again, that's why you're here.
Room & Board: Ten cottages on stilts sit at eye level with resident giraffes, safely above the toothy riffraff. Cradled in the boughs of old-growth mahogany trees, these very private wood-and-thatch cottages—each with a canopied bed and bleached hardwood furnishings—have private treetop showers with views of the lake, the tropical forest, and the 1,500-foot cliffs of the Great Rift Valley escarpment. Hit the viewing deck for the lodge specialty, a frozen gin and tonic, before sampling exotic dishes like wildebeest marinated in local red wine and plantains baked in a tandoor.
Out the Back Door: Both at dawn and in late afternoon, guests jump into an open-top Toyota Land Cruiser and head for the acacia woodlands and Maji Moto Hot Springs on 125-square-mile Lake Manyara's western shore. You're on the lookout for elephants, leopards, lions, and buffalo, but the show-stealers are the immense flocks of flamingos that paint the water and sky pink.
DETAILS
Lake Manyara Tree Lodge:
From $275 per person per night, including two daily safari drives, meals, and drinks;
888-882-3742, www.ccafrica.com Boonville Hotel: Doubles, $95-$250 per night, including breakfast of coffee, juice, and scones; 707-895-2210, www.boonvillehotel.com
Comino Hotel and Bungalows: $55-$70 per person per day, including breakfast and dinner. An extra $25 per person per day covers lunch, Maltese wine, and use of canoes and kayaks.
011-356-2152-9821, www.cominohotels.com Mount Victory Camp
Tents, $75 per night, double occupancy; bungalows, $85; $10 per additional adult. Bring your own food.
866-772-1651, www.mtvictorycamp.com
5. BOONVILLE HOTEL Boonville, California
Drive two hours north of San Francisco, past Napa and Sonoma, and you'll encounter Boonville, a former logging town in the Anderson Valley founded in the 1850s. The region's rolling hills and redwood forests blend with orchards and vineyards, home to a mix of country folk and well-heeled sophisticates. Funky Boonville, a town of less than a thousand, and the instantly likable Boonville Hotel are decidedly low-key counterpoints to the stuffier wine country down south.
Room & Board: Once a roadhouse, the 139-year-old, two-story, salmon-colored hotel still beckons passersby with its spacious verandas, wooden rockers, and inviting hammocks. Everything about this place exudes comfort, from the ten rooms (including a studio and a bungalow) with downy duvets and Shaker-style furnishings to the homespun restaurant serving local pinot noir and rib-eye steak with polenta. Alongside the airy dining room and bar, the yard overflows with roses, sunflowers, and a cook's garden of berries, herbs, and rhubarb.
Out the Back Door: Grab a kayak and a guide in the coastal town of Elk, 16 miles away, and follow a five-mile out-and-back route: Paddle beneath Wharf Rock arch, heading north past coves, caves, and a bird and seal rookery, and riding open-ocean swells on the way back to Greenwood State Beach. Closer to Boonville, hike two miles through virgin redwood groves in Hendy Woods State Park and swim in the Navarro River where it flows beneath a white wooden bridge just outside the park.
6. COMINO HOTEL AND BUNGALOWS Comino Island, Malta
The minute you step off the ferry from the northwestern edge of Malta and onto Comino Island, you'll feel that shipwrecked sense of isolation. This craggy, two-square-mile member of the Maltese archipelago might be home to four farmers and a lodge, the Comino Hotel and Bungalows, but the sea reigns here. A swirl of turquoise and sapphire Mediterranean wraps around the island, luring you back offshore to explore the coastline's hidden caves.
Room & Board: The 95-room limestone hotel features an expansive terrace, a seaside pool, and two small sandy beaches. The 45 bungalows, each with a balcony overlooking the sea and some large enough to sleep five people, are perched atop an adjacent bay just beyond the hotel, with their own pool and restaurant. The menu changes daily and includes fish—like baked acciola (a Mediterranean version of amberjack) and the steak-like grilled dentici—as well as Maltese rabbit stew.
Out the Back Door: Scuba-dive in the underwater caves of Santa Maria Bay or check out the coral reef off Cominotto, an even smaller neighboring island, with certified instructors from the hotel's PADI Dive Center. Sea-kayak less than a mile to Rabbit's Nest, a protected bay with 100-foot limestone cliffs; a secret staircase set into the cliffs takes you to a 17th-century watchtower constructed by the Knights of St. John to monitor seafaring invaders.
7. MOUNT VICTORY CAMP St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands
Brand-new Mount Victory Camp presents guests with a pleasant Caribbean quandary: what to do first? Just beyond your tent flap are the mountains and valleys of St. Croix's wild northwest corner, crisscrossed with hiking and biking trails and garnished with mango trees. A 20-minute walk away is a sugary white-sand beach, with a coral reef a few flipper kicks offshore and calypso beach bars for post-swim.
Room & Board: Co-owner Bruce Wilson, a transplanted New Englander who's lived on the island for 40 years, has turned this onetime Danish estate into a 15-acre back-to-the-earth outpost, complete with chickens, horses, and 300 fruit trees. The three platform tents and two bungalows are positioned for ocean and hillside views and built of hurricane-felled teak and mahogany. Each has a kitchenette, and guests share a central pavilion for lounging and a bathhouse with hot running water. Swigs of Mount Victory's infamous Mama Juana herbal rum tonic, purported to improve health, come with the deal.
Out the Back Door: Hop aboard the 42-foot glass-bottom Renegade, run by Big Beard's Adventure Tours (340-773-4482, www.bigbeards.com), for a sailing excursion to Buck Island Reef National Monument, where you'll snorkel through underwater grottoes. Or kayak the craggy north shore with Virgin Kayak Tours (340-778-0071) launching in the very bay where Christopher Columbus moored his ships more than 500 years ago.
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