Audrey Prest / Staff Photographer

LA GOULETTE, Tunisia - North Africa, frankly, is not a destination that ever beckoned to me. But then friends invited me to join them on a Holland America cruise of the Mediterranean, and the itinerary included a stop in this port adjacent the city of Tunis.

MAJURO, Marshall Islands -- The people of the Central Pacific don't need science to understand one possible effect of global warming.

SYDNEY, Australia -- Yes, the ride is long, real long. That's the short answer to the first question they ask when you say you've been to Australia.

WHISTLER, British Columbia -- Whistler and its twin neighbor, Blackcomb Mountain, about a two-hour drive north up the stunningly beautiful Sea to Sky Highway from Vancouver, is widely recognized as one of the top resorts in North America by skiers and snowboarders.

Brennan Linsley/Associated Press

CHARLOTTE AMALIE, U.S. Virgin Islands -- As it headed to the U.S. Virgin Islands, the 10-seater plane cruised over islets and light-blue waters that revealed luminous coral reefs.

REIMS, France - After a Paris breakfast of cafe and croissant, how about lunch and a glass of bubbly in France's Champagne region?

Photo by Lori Lair

ROATAN, Honduras - All things must change, but there is one constant in Honduras' slice of the western Caribbean: the reef.

There are hundreds of miles of it -- part of the second-longest reef in the world.