Aruba

Travel to Aruba has a growing number of fans, from honeymooners and sun worshippers to snorkelers, sailors, and weekend gamblers. When you lie back along the seven-mile stretch of white-sand beach, you'll enjoy an average 82°F daytime temperature, trade winds, and very low humidity. Moreover, you won't be harassed by peddlers on the beach, you'll find it relatively safe, and you won't feel racial tensions. An Aruba vacation is truly the definition of Paradise.

Aruba stands outside the hurricane path. Its coastline on the leeward side is smooth and serene, with white-sand beaches; but on the eastern coast, the windward Atlantic side, it looks rugged and wild. You'll find travel to Aruba to be dry and sunny almost year-round. Aruba has clean, exhilarating air, like in the desert of Palm Springs, California. Forget lush vegetation here, as Aruba receives only 17 inches of rainfall annually.

Its own Palm Beach, one of the best in the world, draws droves of tourists, as do its glittering casinos. Aruba is for vacationers who think that sun-drenched flesh is best complemented by an elegant evening gown. An Aruba vacation is a combination of leisure down time and elegance.

Though it is still a Dutch protectorate, Aruba became a nation unto itself in 1986. With more than a dozen Aruba resort hotels populating its once-uninhabited beaches, it is now one of the Caribbean's most popular destinations. A recent moratorium on hotel construction, however, has halted the building of newer resorts--so for now, Aruba remains safe from rampant over development.