Cape+Town travel tips and stories. Vacations ideas, cruises spa and resorts

Grootbos is among the best reserves in Western Cape, South Africa. Just on two-hours drive from the coast of Cape Town, this is a family-run venture with dedicated team of award-wining conservationists who together have rescued the area and restored its beauty. This is place for nature trails and running wild, for horseback riding on deserted beaches and picnicking among the flowers. Many tourists come to the sandy beach to see the 40-ton southern right whales and watch spellbound as mothers, calves, and energetic bulls come to within 100 feet (30 m) of the shoreline. Photo by: simonlp-flickr

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Just few minutes away of the town of Marseille a piece of nature survive untouched among pine trees, rocky cliffs, and turquoise waters, all this making you feel as though you get across the Caribbean. Some of the cliff shores were once ancient river months. They puncture the shore as far as 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) inland. These areas are now protected and are left wild and untouched. Some have a few small, shedlike homes at the edge of the water with tiny little restaurants nearby. In Sormiou, Le Lunch restaurant offers plastic furniture and rather overpriced fresh fish, but it has a unique selling point. The Mediterranean gently laps at its feet while all around, the views offer only blue sea and impressive limestone cliffs.

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Landscape artists flock to Kazimierz Dolny because it is thought to be blessed with an effervescent light. The appeal of the tiny, sleepy town has not been lost on film directors, either who have often used its atmospheric streets as a setting for romances and historical thrillers. Sitting proudly on the banks of the Vistula River, Kazimiers Dolny in eastern Poland is flush with cobbled streets lined with historical buildings. A laid-back retreat for stressed-out city dwellers who swarm there during the summer months from the nearby cities of Warsaw and Lublin. Photo by: ben.tastic

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Natural springwaters have been flowing into a volcanic crater in front of what is now the Terme di Saturnia Spa and Golf Resort for more than 3,000 years. The chic, minimalist hotel set at the foot of the ancient village of Saturnia in the Maremma region has one of the most famous spas in the world, renowned for its medical care as much as for its conventional beauty treatments, which take place in any one of fifty treatments rooms. Photo by: vladushk (GINEVRA – GENEVA – GENEVE – GENF)

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Reaching Greystoke Mahale is an adventure. It is set on the remote eastern shores of vast Lake Tanganyika, and getting to the camp involves a four-hour flight on a small plane from Arusha, followed by a ninety-minute dhow trip on the lake. There are no roads within 60 miles (100 km) of this secluded sanctuary, and it is a two-hour boat ride to the nearest town. It is well off the tourist map, so if you are seeking solitude, Greystoke Mahale has plenty.

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If you want to see a valley so magnificent that it gets you thinking about what the Garden of Eden might have looked like, travel to Cuba. Richly, fertile, with endless tobacco, sugarcane, and coffee plantations, the western province of Pinar del Rio is a blessed with a lush greenness, beautiful rivers, and natural springs. The pretty village of Vinales is nestled into the breathtaking Sierra de los Organos mountains, and the Vinales Valley is UNESCO-protected. Photo by: rikun1401

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A stunning seventeenth-century colonial harbor town on Brazil‘s Costa Verde, Paraty is a perfectly preserved UNESCO World Heritage site. Paraty meaning ”river of fish” in the Tupi language, was founded in 1667. The town’s growth was based on its location at the end of the Gold Trail connecting Rio and Europe to the gold mines in Minas Gerais by the sea. Photo by: Rodrigo_Soldon

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On the edge of a small fishing village in the heart of a natural park, Picinguaba Pousada is a relaxing hotel in a former colonial mansion run by unpretentious Brazilian couple. It sits on the stunning Costa Verde (green coast), a UNESCO World Heritage Site full of spectacular landscapes. Photo by: Jacada Travel

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The Cape Byron Lighthouse is the most easterly positioned lighthouse in the Australia. Constructed of prefabricated concrete blocks in 1901, it‘s one of the most powerful. Located only 2km east of the town of Byron Bay, the lighthouse stands on a bald rocky headland and offers incredible views. Once on Cape Byron you will be able to see even the surfers on Main Beach. Photo by:  Byron Bay Gliding

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A campsite unlike any other, this vast peaceful complex sits next to the beautiful lake Hopfen, Germany. The lake is considered one of the warmest in the Bavarian Allgau region and is ideal for swimming, fishing and nonmotorized water sports. The picturesque town of Fussen is 3 miles away.

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