Mexico

Baja Med: New cuisine flourishes in Baja California

Until recently, Baja California’s culinary contribution to the world amounted to the Caesar salad, a dish hardly associated with Mexican food. Beyond that, this long, thin peninsula was known more for its Chinese food and pizza thanks to the thousands of migrants from all over the world who began to settle the Mexican state south of California in the 19th century.

Bar scene: Costa Rica

Where the bars make tourists feel like locals

Happy, clean and tropical, Costa Rica has almost too much to love about visiting. The bars are no exception. On the west coast, the drinking options will satiate any style of imbiber. Kick back to some reggae or pop the cork on a fine bottle of bubbly and enjoy an equally indulgent view — the bars here will make a local out of you, even if only in spirit.

The Bahamas

Swimming with the sharks

At Bimini Big Game Club’s up-close adventure, visitors are in a cage and the bull sharks swim free.

Are you ready for some futebol?

In Brazil, soccer is not just a game — it’s a national drama.

Quick trips

Life is a celebration in Trinidad and Tobago

Derrick, our garrulous tour guide, offers a biriba, a prickly looking pod he’s cut open to expose a pale and pulpy fruit, as well as some peer pressure.“What’s the matter?” he asks.“Don’t you want to live forever?”

Mexico

Following in Mayan footsteps (carefully, to avoid snakes)

The ancient Mayans played a soccer-like sport with great ferocity, according to our guide, Victor. So seriously did the Mayans take this game, Victor said, that when it was over, the winning team’s captain was beheaded.

Ecuador

Life after logging: an rainforest experience

Hiking the rainforest in northwest Ecuador, an area packed with some of the world’s highest concentrations of plant and animal life, I’m wondering if there are any dangerous creatures on the trail — poisonous snakes, perhaps.

A tasty mix

In Argentina, olive groves grow amid the vineyards

Quick trips: Rincon

A Puerto Rican island getaway with surf and son

I see her as I step out from among the sea grape trees and onto the golden sands: tanned, blond and bikini-clad, she is walking toward me. And she possesses the one characteristic I’m yearning to see in a woman on the beach: a little kid.

Quick trips: Santo Domingo

In search of a quality Dominican feast

Strange as it may sound, finding good Dominican food isn’t so easy in Dominican restaurants.

Culinary excursions

Peru: Sampling the pleasures of ceviche, potatoes, guinea pig

Before journeying to Peru, I jokingly asked a Spanish-speaking friend to teach me one phrase, and one phrase only, to guide me in my upcoming travels: “Dame todo su comida,” or “Give me all your food.”

Quick trips: Puerto Rico

Ponce recalls 19th century colonialism

There was a time, not that long ago, when visitors to Puerto Rico’s second-largest city were cautioned not to stray from the central plaza after dark. Many of Ponce’s ornate 19th century buildings were vacant and falling to pieces, and the poorly lit streets were made even shadier by some of the characters who roamed them looking for handouts — or worse.

Lima

Spending a night with the dead in Peru’s capital

When Presbitero Matias Maestro cemetery in Lima received its first body in 1808, the best plots went to the elite, unless the noble had been dishonored or disgraced.

All-inclusives: Resorts offer myriad of styles

Order breakfast while still in bed at the new Aura Cozumel Wyndham Grand Bay. You'll have just enough time for a dip in the private plunge pool above your third-floor suite before room service delivers smoked salmon, fruit and coffee.

QUICK TRIPS

Turks and Caicos Islands are booming

This tiny group of islands in the West Indies has one of the world's fastest-growing economies, sparked by high-end resorts and a booming real estate market.

GETTING THERE

Nonstop flights make Caribbean, Bahamas just a hop away

While airlines are cutting flights from other parts of the country, South Florida is actually getting new service.

Rambling all-inclusive near Puerto Plata, D.R.

On a sun-drenched afternoon in the Dominican Republic, a young bride stood under a cloudless sky, draped in lace and her dark hair covered in a wisp of veil. The groom was dapper in a light linen suit, his fingers interlaced with hers. The woman said ''I do'' in Spanish; he responded in kind. Family and friends toasted the union with champagne; I raised my Happy Happy cocktail, wishing them well despite not knowing their names or their love story.

CURACAO

Curacao: An underwater wonderland

Curac¸ao is blessed with a diverse reef environment on a foundation of volcanic limestone.

Mellow with Marley at Jamaica all-inclusive

In retrospect, it was pretty unnecessary to go searching for Bob Marley in Jamaica. At Club Ambiance, the all-inclusive resort at Runaway Bay on Jamaica's north shore where my friend Jay and I stayed for a long weekend, the gazebo bar at the end of the pier started playing the reggae star's songs at breakfast and didn't quit till sunset, and a three-foot-tall statue of the singer perched on the railing, his back to the Caribbean Sea.

Young and restless at Cancun all-inclusive

It was like a scene out of CSI: Cancun. I awoke on an achingly bright Saturday morning to find that the curtains in my fifth-floor room at the Golden Parnassus resort had already been parted (or never drawn). The door to the balcony was wide open, so the room was as hot and sultry as the air outside. The TV was on, clothes littered the floor, and I'd fallen asleep in my bathing suit and T-shirt. I got out of bed and stepped into the remains of a burger and fries sitting on the floor that I'd gotten...