Two good reasons to visit the Dominican Republic: winter is whale-watching season and Club Med Punta Cana recently opened 32 upmarket, family suites.

Canoeing through the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge, we enter a strange, new world, a habitat for water fowl, wading birds, as well as for river otters and alligators. It´s the largest national wildlife refuge in the eastern United States.

Discover the secrets on a Caribbean rainforest on Nevis, a laid-back island with a population of about 10,000. On Nevis the only “crowds” we encounter are the hundreds of goats and sheep roaming free during the day before they return to their owners at dusk.

A lion cub tugs at my sweater while another grabs my daughter’s pant leg. A giraffe swings his crane-like neck toward us, unfurls his foot-long, purple tongue to grab the food pellets from our hands. Before our safari, we´re enjoying close encounters with the animals at Johannesburg´s Lion Park.

Even the best beach aficionado needs some time away from the shore. Vacation in Ft. Myers, Sanibel, Captiva or Marco Island, along Florida’s southwest, and you can savor not only the sea and sand, but also the natural Florida of estuaries, salt marshes, mangrove swamps, pine woods and pastures.

Providenciales, affectionately called “Provo,” features one of the Caribbean’s best beaches: 12-mile-long Grace Bay Beach. Provo, one of our favorite Caribbean destinations, offers a slow-paced, beach getaway with eco-adventures and great food.

Antietam, one of the best preserved and least commercial battlefield parks, provides a dignified memorial and a powerful sense of the bloodiest battle of the Civil War. Time travel through history by driving and walking the pastoral landscape of meadows, creeks and corn fields.

Leaf-peepers love fall for its dazzling foliage. Autumn is the season to hike through woods, take scenic train rides and drive the back roads in order to savor the scenery. Billowing red, yellow and rust colored leaves change a mountainside to ribbons of color and forest groves shine like gems.

It’s not often you can safely get within a few feet of wild polar bears. On a Tundra Buggy Adventure travel through these bears´ terrain. Watch as North America’s largest carnivores roll in snowdrifts, engage in mock fights and lope across the frozen tundra.

Go on a secret mission with Operation Spy, at D.C.'s International Spy Museum. In this one-hour, interactive adventure, you race through a back street bazaar and underground tunnel as well as monitor video surveillance, decode a cell phone call and piece together other clues to find the culprits.