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| | The Bahamas
The Bahamas has become a popular destination for US jetsetters, but there are still places among its 700 islands and 2500 cays to disappear into a mangrove forest, explore a coral reef and escape the high-rise hotels and package-tour hype.
The 18th-century Privateers' Republic has become the 20th-century banker's paradise, at least on New Providence and Grand Bahamas. On the other islands - once known as the Out Islands but now euphemistically called the Family Islands - the atmosphere is more truly West Indian.
The islands offer some of the best snorkeling and scuba diving in the world, with 2500 miles (4023km) of ocean wall drop-offs, underwater caverns and blue holes - fathomless water-filled sinkholes that open to submarine caves. Every island is rimmed by coral reefs, and the waters offer exceptional visibility and year-round temperatures that make heavy wetsuits unnecessary. Under the surface you'll see a dazzling display of colorful sea life, ranging from
the exotic to the eerie: moray eels, grunts, barracudas, stingrays, turtles, queen triggerfish, sand tigers, parrotfish and angelfish flashing their neon colors, and an impressive array of hard and soft coral formations totaling an estimated 5% of the world's coral reefs. There are plentiful ship and plane wrecks to explore - even a train off Eleuthera. Some islanders believe that a road to the 'lost' city of Atlantis lies just off Bimini. Above all,
the Bahamas is renowned for wall dives along the sheer-faced trenches at the edges of the Bahama Banks.
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