Who says the only good value vacation is a shared cabin at the lake, or a week at the beach? By planning carefully, you can stretch your travel dollar so that it takes you to exotic international destinations full of delightful surprises.
Good dollar deals mean savings, of course, but they don't always mean inexpensive. Instead, these trips give you the satisfaction of knowing that your travel dollar was well-spent. Here are six journeys abroad that offer an exciting package for your money.
BAHAMAS BOUND Small Hope Bay Lodge gives you the Bahamas, barefoot and vibrant. An intimate, rustic retreat on the Out Island of Andros, Small Hope Bay attracts people seeking deep-sea wonders and on-shore informality. What sets it apart from the many other resorts in this Caribbean nation? Beyond its doors the third largest reef in the world stretches for 142 miles.
With the all-inclusive price, you not only receive three meals a day, and free rein of the bar, but three dives daily, as well as use of all the necessary diving equipment. Neophytes obtain practice, and never-done-its learn to scuba with the resort course. These azure waters offer the perfect place to explore the sea where schools of rainbow-hued parrot fish, yellowtail snapper and blue tang float by gardens of coral blooming in neon colors.
Back on land, it's hammocks, hot tubs and simplicity. Most guests just wear T-shirts and shorts. Dinner comes family-style for the capacity crowd of 40, who bunk in 20 cottages built from native pine and coral. Despite the private baths and ceiling fans, rustic best describes these rooms, and night life is what you make of it. But how could you miss with the moonlight and the magic of the watery deep?
In summer this good deal gets even better. While the Bahamas' temperature rises just a few degrees, the prices go down about 30 percent. A three-night, all-inclusive package costs $540 per person. Contact: Small Hope Bay Lodge, (800) 223-6961.
DOWN-UNDER WONDERS: MELBOURNE AND KANGAROO ISLAND It's never been cheaper to fly to Melbourne, Australia, a sophisticated city with urban charm and easy access to such country sites as wineries, gold-rush towns and wildlife sanctuaries. Now through October, Australia's off-season, the air fares drop to as low as $300 one-way from Los Angeles. A round-trip ticket must be purchased and restrictions apply. Hotel rates plummet as well. The bargains get better still since the American dollar buys about 17 percent more than the Australian dollar.
You'll never be bored in Melbourne, which rivals Sydney for attractions. The ultra-modern, underground Victorian Arts Centre hosts concerts and plays, and museums abound. The zoo features a first-rate butterfly house, and the Royal Botanical Gardens is a treat of fern gullies, broad lawns, towering trees, and ponds dotted with black swans.
The Yarro Valley, 1 1/4 hours away, offers the sparkling wine of Domaine Chandon and acres of animals. The Healesville Sanctuary lets you wander among lyrebirds, platypuses, koalas and wombats, as well as pet the kangaroos and wallabies that waddle by.
Sovereign Hill, a re-created gold-rush town in Ballarat, 70 miles west of Melbourne, offers hands-on history that has you riding stagecoaches, touring mines and panning for gold. Kangaroo Island, a short flight from Melbourne, gives you an intriguing landscape where Australia's wondrous wildlife roams free. Koalas curl in eucalyptus trees, emus saunter about, seals creep over the sands to your feet, and kangaroos thump to your side.
Information: Call the Australian Tourist Commission, (800) 333-0199. Airlines offering discounted rates include Quantas, Air New Zealand, Continental, Northwest and United. Many tour companies, and airlines, offer package deals. Expanding Horizons has a land package of seven nights' lodging at the tony Windsor Park Hotel, $524 per person. A one-night, two-day package of air fare and lodging on Kangaroo Island costs $325 per person. Call: Expanding Horizons, (800) 421-6416.
COSTA RICA Wild parakeets chatter noisily overhead. A toucan swoops by, a big-beaked flash of black and yellow. Swallows dart under bamboo bridges. In the background are mountainsides green with spreading ceiba trees. These sites are commonplace on raft trips just a few hours from Costa Rica's capital, San Jose. This city is a great place from which to explore Costa Rica's natural wonders, which include rain forests, volcanoes and miles of beaches.
Costa Rica is not only friendly, and easy to get to (about a 2 1/2 -hour flight from Miami), but it's inexpensive, especially in the summer, when the afternoons may bring a bit of rain. Plan to be inside, enjoying a late, leisurely lunch.
From San Jose, visit a butterfly farm, peer into the crater of an active volcano, and horseback ride along mountain slopes. Take overnight trips to Monteverde Cloud Forest, where orchids seem to float in the mists, and hike Manuel Antonio National Park, where monkeys and sloths hang from the trees.
Information: Call the Costa Rica Tourist Board, (800) 327-7033. Good city hotels such as Hotel Irazu cost about $62 for a double. Car rentals are about $225 per week. Tour companies offer various packages. Horizontes offers one- HTC to four-day trips. A three-day, two-night trip to Monteverde is about $395 per person, including transportation from San Jose, lodging, guide and most meals. Call 506-22-2022. Journeys offers several Costa Rican package trips. Call (800) 255-8735.
IRISH WALKING TOUR Walk into a landscape of craggy cliffs, wind-swept farmlands and misty harbors. When you stroll through the Irish countryside, the scenery becomes the message, and the pace the medium. This tour, led by naturalists, allows you to stop and smell the flowers, talk to the sheepherders and watch for deer in the clearings.
Both morning and afternoon walks cover three to five miles on easy-to-moderate terrain, punctuated by picnic lunches in sight of waterfalls or rugged seascapes. In the Dingle Peninsula, where the tour starts, you pass castles, clochans (beehive-shaped huts used as cells by sixth century monks) and ogham stones marked with ancient writing. In Killarney, the hikes take you through emerald forests and along lakes. Lodging is at a country manor with a swimming pool and a nine-hole golf course.
When you tire of strolling, hop on the backup van and go to the nearby village. There, join the locals in the pub for a pint. At night, listen to the Irish storytellers, or make up some myths of your own.
This no-hassle, one-price vacation includes meals, lodging and tour guides, and gives you a chance to walk off your everyday worries in a pastoral landscape.
Call Country Walkers, (802) 244-1387. A seven-day trip in the southwestern areas of Dingle, Killarney, Gougane Barra and Glengarriff costs $1,799, not including air fare. Country Walkers also offers tours of other areas.
VILLA RENTAL IN THE CARIBBEAN Do you want privacy and pampering? A cook who prepares such island delights as lobster and jerk chicken, while your butler serves you afternoon drinks by the pool? Then rent a staffed villa in the Caribbean. You receive much more space than a hotel room, all the pleasures of home without the work, more food for your money, and the delight of a secluded escape.
When shared with friends, these villas, especially in off-season, become an even better bargain. For example, when four couples share Villa Mawr, a luxury, staffed, four-bath, four-bedroom, ocean-view residence in Jamaica, the price is $3,650, or less than $500 per week per person.
Additional fees include food (you tell the cook what to buy) and tips.
Jamaica offers the best island buy for staffed villas. On Barbados, St. John and St. Thomas a property similar to Villa Mawr costs significantly more.
There are many companies handling the rental of villas. Some of these villas come with staff and some without. Some companies can obtain air fare and car rentals for clients. Passport Limited Luxury Villas and Resorts rents Villa Mawr and many other villas in Jamaica, Barbados, St. John and St. Thomas. Ask about air fare from Baltimore. (800) 331-8681. Other companies: Villas and Apartments Abroad, (800) 433-3020; Hideaways International (800) 843-4433.
TOURING THE CANADIAN ROCKIES Motor-coach tours are no longer boring forays that allow you time enough only to point and look at the scenery, with pit stops only at bathrooms and gift shops. Good tour companies use their buying power not only to put you in the best accommodations, and to add unusual side trips, but also to price their packages at 30 percent to 40 percent less than you could get for yourself.
On several of Tauck Tours' Canadian Rockies trips, the bus gives way to scenic rail journeys, helicopter flightseeing, gondola rides, raft trips and hiking.
For example, on the Grand Canadian Rockies jaunt a day in Victoria features a ferry ride to Vancouver Island, and a bird's eye view from a floatplane over the San Juan Islands. Then an overnight train takes you along the Fraser and North Thompson rivers in the Rocky Mountains. At Jasper Park Lodge, opt for a raft trip on the Athabasca River, or a tram ride to a mountain summit.
When booking a motor-coach tour, don't just compare price. Find out what is included. Ask about meals, mini-adventures, taxes and tips. The fewer the add-ons, the lower the price.
Tauck Tours offers an 11-day, 10-night trip through the Grand Canadian Rockies for $2,425, per person, double occupancy. A nine-day, eight-night Canadian Rockies Plus Cariboo Mountains Tour costs $2,050 per person. (800) 468-2825.