Your favourite/most exotic location - and why?

[Ptilinopus]

Where is the most fantastic, most beautiful, most exotic, top of your list place you have ever been to? Please describe in a few words - and why it is tops with you. Maybe you have more than one - so add another later?



For starters, I really loved visiting Ushuaia, in Tierra del Fuego, Argentina, back in 1988. The world's most southerly town (there are a few settlements further south - but only a handful of inhabitants each), it fronts on the Beagle Channel, backed by the tail end of the Andes. Even in November (late southern spring) there was snow on the not-so-tall peaks, and flurries of sleet. For me the great attraction was the wildlife, especially the birds. A tourist cat out into the harbour, and up the channel eastwards was great - seals, albatrosses, petrels, storm-petrels, diving-petrels, steamer ducks, penguins (both Magellanic and Gentoo), sheathbills, cormorants - fantastic. The national park nearby (and a cheap car rental) made for a great time. Twenty years on, and many countries later, it is still one of my favourite spots.

[Zoning Goddess]

Not exotic...but I spent 15 years on the left coast of FL, watching grand sunsets in the evenings. Dolphins leaping a hundred yards off the beach. But I could turn my head around just a bit and watch shuttle launches. Best of both worlds.

[JNA]

Yosemite Valley where the setting sun shines on Half Dome.

[natski]

Kakadu National Park in Austalia, or even Uluru/Kata tjuta National Park. I love our red centre!

[Budgie]

I'm just glad to see the proper English spelling of Favourite used in the thread title. Surely I can think of an exotic harbour in my neighbourhood for my laboured response.

I'd say Maddy's Pub... Abilene, Kansas is my favourite exotic local place.

[WSU MUP Student]

When I was in the Marine Corps I had the opportunity to spend a month in Phuket, Thailand and was able to go to many of the beaches on the Phi Phi Islands (pronounced "pee pee").

While all the crazy stories that you hear about the bars and clubs in Thailand are pretty much true, you never here just how beautiful and serene the beaches can be. It was back in 1998 when I was there so I have not seen what has become of the area since the tsunami a few years ago but this was indeed a place to visit before you die.

Along with the Grand Canyon, this is one of the few natural places I have been on Earth that has inspired an immediate since of awe in me.

Absolutely gorgeous.

[tsc]

My definition of exotic would be something not close to home (Northeast US). I spent a summer in the Dodecanese Islands in Greece. Most of the time I was on the Island of Patmos. I was there as part of an off-campus semester doing an independant study on coastal zone management (studying the beach!).

[Maister]

I've never actually been there, but I'd really like to go to Banks Island some day.
http://www.answers.com/topic/sachs-h...ies?cat=travel

I'd also like to see the Faroes or Hebrides before I check out.

[jmello]

Piata Beach in Salvador da Bahia, Brasil: the most beautiful water, waves, women, and windswept palms one has ever seen.

[TexanOkie]

My vote would be the Central Coast of California, from Santa Cruz down to Santa Barbara. Small farming communities, fishing towns, and dramatic views of the ocean and surrounding mountains are extremely exotic coming from Oklahoma/Texas, and it's hard to believe that it's still the the same country.

[Greenescapist]

Kauai, Hawaii is a pretty amazing island- green and lush, jagged mountains, waterfalls, beaches, streams- typical island paradise, but a lot more to do.

[PlannerGirl]

Hidden Beach Ft Sherman Rep de Panama' the reef protects a little inlet, no waves, crystal clear warm water, palms and wild fruits of all kinds with not a soul around. You could lay on the sand all day and not see signs of another living person. Fantastic diving though carrying all your crap to the beach was a pain.

2nd best is Drakes Island Portobello Rep de Panama' a few more folks and some small waves but very quiet and the best camping on the beach I have ever seen.

Sigh

[ofos]

My little piece of E. Texas because I can get away from Big D every weekend.

[TOFB]

I would say Gulfoss in Central Iceland in December was pretty exotic for me. . .

[DetroitPlanner]

Bora Bora, because the Michigan Wilderness is not exotic to me.

[ofos]

Bora Bora, because the Michigan Wilderness is not exotic to me.

Interesting that you would say that, I've been away from Michigan for almost 25 years now with visits back every year or two. For the first time this year, the Michigan landscape looked familiar yet foreign to me as compared to Texas.

[otterpop]

I went to Colombia to meet my soon-to-be wife's family. Bogota and Pasto were very different than America. Beautiful, dark women always dressed to the nines. Spanish style town squares. Narrow streets. Che Guevara images stenciled to walls. Lush green forests. Went to a salt mine that had been converted into a cathedral.

We cross the border into Tucan, Bolivia and it was just like out of National Geographic. Very short, dark Indians wearing brightly-colored wool clothing. The cemetary there had topiaries that were amazing. Cemetaries there are like parks.

Only thing that was like America was the Chinese restaurant on the Colombian side of the border. Maybe Chinese restaurants are the same everywhere but China.

I am average height but in Tucan I was Shaq.

[CJC]

Funny that the OP referred to Ushuaia - I spent a week there several years ago(during a six month backpacking trip through Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Chile). We were planning on just staying for a couple days, but got stranded when all of the buses were full for a solid week after getting there - the only place in South America where we couldn't buy a ticket for the bus the same day we wanted to leave!

For me though - Fortaleza, Brazil. It's a pretty large city (2-3 million, I believe) on the coast of northeast Brazil with great beaches in the area, tremendously good restaurants, and very few of those pesky "tourists"

Armstrong Grove in Sonoma County, CA would be second for me. It's a state park full of enormous redwoods - a great place to enjoy a bottle of wine from one of the area wineries.

[kjel]

Most of you know that I went to South Asia with Ball State's CapAsia program earlier this year. I got to see many amazing things and it's hard to choose which was my favorite but here are a few.

Banda Aceh, Indonesia-Absoulutely decimated by the tsunami and beginning to come back. The people were fantastic and the place was stunningly beautiful from its mountains, rice paddies, and beaches.


Just outside of Banda Aceh.


That's my daughter on the beach, the brunt of the tsunami came ashore here.

Mt. Lavinia Beach, Sri Lanka-Weekend destination for the small cities to the west and south of Colombo. It's one of the few good swimming beaches around and a lovely way to beat the heat!


This is a photo of Josh, one of the people I traveled with. My daughter took this photo!

Kirinda-Paltupanna, Sri Lanka-This is where I did my field research and to me it's heaven on earth. Very small, remote, beautiful, and next to the Yala National Park.


Front yard of the bungalow we rented in the morning.


And in the evening.

[zman]

I liked being inland in Belize, mingling with locals in Orange Walk (where the chief exports are weed and bananas )
San Pedro was cool too, and pretty authentic, but getting to the main part of Belize was cool, fun, and eye opening.

[illinoisplanner]

The beaches of Southwest Florida, including Sanibel Island, Fort Myers Beach, and Siesta Key. It's just heaven on earth. The palm trees, the picture-perfect sunsets over the ocean, the powder white sand that is so soft on your feet, the colorful buildings, the relaxed atmosphere, the hot sun, the hot babes, the delcious seafood, the sound of the waves. And it's not like home (the Midwest), which makes it exotic. I do have other favorite places closer to home, but because they're closer to home, they're not exotic, so I did not list them.

[craines]

The california coast from big sur to morro bay.......Yosemite, Banff Canada (on top of whistler in the candian rockies), New York city, Cannes, Hyde Park and the Sea of Cortez down in Baja are my choices.

[Ptilinopus]

Another of my most beautiful spots, was where I lived for 5 yrs back in the 1980s, overlooking Lake Kivu, in Rwanda. I directed a nursing school/hospital at Mugonero for 5 years. The cottage I lived in was pretty basic, but the view from the back porch was incredible! Altitude of 5,800 ft, with the lake at 4,000ft below, and looking across to Zaire in the distance. The genocide has left its mark since, both at our location, and on us personally, as well as on many of our friends. But I'll never forget this beautiful place. The view had many moods. The attached pics show two - rainstorm and sunset.

[Mark]

I've never actually been there, but I'd really like to go to Banks Island some day.
http://www.answers.com/topic/sachs-h...ies?cat=travel

I'd also like to see the Faroes or Hebrides before I check out.

I have an ex-planning commission member who hunted musk ox on Banks Island. This guy hunted all over the world.

[Whose Yur Planner]

The UP along Lake Superior. Pictured Rocks up there is fantasic. It went along way in cementing my pro-environment view. As intensely verbal as I am, I can not begin to explain it. It is simply a place that needs to be experienced.