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They, along with their co-hosts are completely comfortable taking it easy and eating fine food in front of the camera. There are spas, Mercedes convertibles, wine country, and delicious Spanish food, everywhere you turn. For those who love both travel and food and admirers of the beautiful Gwyneth Patrow.

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European discovery began in 1521 when the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan sighted Pukapuka in the Tuamotu Archipelago. Dutchman Jakob Roggeveen discovered Bora Bora in the Society Islands in 1722, and the British explorer Samuel Wallis visited Tahiti in 1767. The French explorer Louis Antoine de Bougainville visited Tahiti in 1768, while the British explorer James Cook visited in 1769. Christian missions began with Spanish priests who stayed in Tahiti for a year from 1774; Protestants from the London Missionary Society settled permanently in Polynesia in 1797.

King Pomare II of Tahiti was forced to flee to Moorea in 1803; he and his subjects were converted to Protestantism in 1812. French Catholic missionaries arrived on Tahiti in 1834; their expulsion in 1836 caused France to send a gunboat in 1838. In 1842, Tahiti and Tahuata were declared a French protectorate, to allow Catholic missionaries to work undisturbed. The capital of Papeete was founded in 1843. In 1880, France annexed Tahiti, changing the status from that of a protectorate to that of a colony.

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The Hotel Zone offers a broad range of accommodations, ranging from relatively inexpensive motel-style facilities in the older section closest to the mainland, to high-priced luxury hotels in the later sections.

Many of the hotels are time-share condominiums with kitchen facilities. Some are all inclusive hotels which offer unlimited breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks, beverages, both alcoholic and non-alcoholic, hotel activities, entertainment, non-motorized water sports, and 40% discounts on tours to the Mayan ruins. Tips and taxes are included in the price of the hotel rooms. There are also upscale private residences and lavish condominiums for rent that cater to the rich. Restaurants, bars and shops in the hotel zone tend to be rather expensive compared with the downtown area and other Mexican resorts.

Travelers will find many well-known theme restaurants and clubs here. Although the Hotel Zone is frequently described as “posh” or “exclusive” the main Cancún tourism market is middle- and upper-middle-class, according to government statistics, which also report that more than 37% of Cancún visitors are Mexican.
On the opposite side of the island from the Caribbean Sea is the Nichupté Lagoon, which is used for boating excursions and jet-ski jungle tours.

Downtown is home to less expensive places to shop, including many supermarkets such as three Wal-Marts, two Comercial Mexicanas, at least seven large Chedraui’s and three Sorianas, not to mention several flea markets like The Zocalo in the heart of the Hotel Zone. Market 28, Downtown, is a well-known shopping place both for locals and visitors.

Downtown also hosts a number of American franchises such as Office Depot, Office Max, the aforementioned Wal-Marts, Sears, Sam’s Club, Costco, Blockbuster, and a number of Starbucks (also located at the Hotel Zone) just to name a few. It also contains countless smaller hotels that can be had at a fraction of the price for similar accommodations in the Hotel Zone. International brands in Downtown area include Radisson Hacienda Cancún, Best Western Plaza Caribe, Oasis America.

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In the last few years, the Lower East Side has emerged as among hottest gallery scenes in the city, but for visitors the best sites can be tricky to find. Now, a colorful map by the area’s Business Improvement District and GalleryBar — hot off the presses on Sept. 24 — plots 54 galleries and art institutions, Web sites included. They range from the (relatively) established Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural and Educational Center to brand-new, like gallery nine5, open this year. The map is available in hotels and at www.lowereastsideny.com. If it’s the art of shopping that you’re interested in, there are plenty of shops nearby that should satisfy that craving, among them the superhip Upper Echelon Shoes (100 Forsyth Street; 212-925-8330), which sells casual designer shoes. (P. Diddy wore them to the BET Awards last year.)

The roof space of the Peninsula Hotel got an overhaul this year, and after adding Chinese daybeds on the patios and Chinese contemporary art on the walls, reopened this May as the Salon de Ning (700 Fifth Avenue; 212-956-2888; www.salondening.com). Sure, naming a high-end bar after a completely fictional 1930s Shanghai socialite and art collector is verging on absurd. But especially if you land one of the few lucky tables overlooking the Museum of Modern Art sculpture garden and order a gin and elderberry-liqueur flavored Ninglet, though, you’ll forget the gimmick and appreciate the place for what it is: not a nostalgic throwback to 1930s China but a depiction of upscale New York 2008.

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Be sure to: Pull yourself away from the beaches long enough to visit the fishing village of Ribeirão da Ilha, just down the southern coast. You’ll get a sense of what Floripa was like before even the surfers arrived.

Best beach: Of the more than 100 beaches here, party-all-the-time Praia Mole is where the surfers and would-be supermodels most dedicatedly show off their form while sinking to their ankles in soft white sand and drinking the afternoon away.

Perfect season: To see and be seen—which is what everybody comes for—make your entrance between Christmas and Carnaval, which falls in late February or early March.

Call it home: Praia Mole Eco Village, with balconies that look out to the island’s best surfing and bikini-admiring beaches.

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I had lived in Shanghai for about two months when I learned that behind every building which fronts the street is a second and far more enticing world: a labyrinth of winding lanes and alleyways that contains all kinds of eclectic little businesses and historic houses. It is an intimate Shanghai, and one that I got to know mostly by setting out and searching on foot.

I had moved here from Manhattan with my twelve-year-old daughter, Lulu, and had rented a lane house in the former French Concession. For the first few weeks, all of our movements were concentrated on the front of the house. Then one day, I unlocked the back door and stepped outside.

Here was a narrow sunlit passage with two-story, gray-brick lane houses like mine on both sides. It was lunchtime, and the weather-beaten wooden doors and rusty casement windows were flung open wide, and inside, people were bending over sizzling woks on hot plates in tiny hallway kitchens. Brown sparrows swooped and chirped and alighted on bamboo poles overhead, prancing on the laundry hanging there. Some women were laughing and chatting with one another as they scrubbed greens at an outdoor sink, and others squatted over pink and red tin basins of water, peeling root vegetables. Farmers, their faces dark brown from countryside sun, hawked cherries with a songlike cry, the fruit piled in woven baskets hung on shoulder poles across the back of their bent necks.

I walked slowly down this lane, turned the corner, and found that the lane wound on, connecting to an even narrower alley which led to two other lanes that twisted and turned around a natural garden of fruit trees and rose bushes and eventually snaked out onto Xinle Road, the street parallel to mine.

I stared up at the old Art Deco apartment buildings which line that road, and I thought that they were almost like storefronts on a movie set. Behind them, thousands of people lived unseen. Further, there were secret ways to move around the city incognito. I determined in that moment to perform a Cheever-esque act. I would try to cross the entire French Concession by secret lanes without ever using a main street or avenue.

Two distinct worlds have existed in Shanghai since the end of the First Opium War in 1842. After the British attacked the Tao-Kuang emperor and took the city, they demanded that Shanghai become an open trading port and that Britain be granted city land for an exclusive settlement run entirely under British law. Not long after, the French and the Americans each claimed the same thing, and lands along the Huangpu River were designated the International Settlement and the French Concession, behind which lay the all-Chinese city proper.

In time, the foreign settlements expanded and eventually encroached on the Chinese city, shoving it back behind the new, elaborate colonial buildings (which we now identify as the Bund), forcing it to squeeze itself into a warren of alleyways and lanes. So was born a Westernized, urban Shanghai, peopled for the most part by foreigners, rich Chinese and their retainers, and the desperately poor. That modern, bustling Shanghai of the 1920s and ’30s flourished until the Japanese invaded in 1939.

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That’s the cornerstone of the 2009 national promotional campaign, “What will you celebrate?” announced today by Walt Disney Parks and Resorts. Anyone showing up with a valid ID including proof of birthdate will get a free ticket on that day in 2009 for one of the theme parks at Disney World or at Disneyland in California.

Disney officials announced the promotion as their effort to cash in on what they described as a growing trend called “celebration vacations” — trips to vacation spots that people take to celebrate big birthdays, big anniversaries, honeymoons and other momentous personal occasions.

Disney World probably already gets a lions’ share of such vacations, according to a Ypartnership marketing survey that Disney commissioned. But until now the company has never put together a unified marketing campaign to attract such celebrations on a large scale.

Even though a free ticket — essentially $75 discount — might seem almost insignificant in a family vacation budget that might run several thousand dollars, Disney’s goal is to get more people at least considering bringing their birthdays to Disney World.

The promotion also will give Disney a new tool to help assure that its theme-park turnstiles keep moving in the next year even if the teetering national economy starts dragging down the tourism business.

While the promotion was announced in New York City, with the aim of attracting national and international visitors, Central Floridians may cash in most easily and most often.

“We not only open up the opportunity, we hope they’ll take the opportunity, ” said Jay Rasulo, chairman of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts. “The flip side of that is, nobody celebrates their birthday by themselves. They bring their family, their friends and their kids with them.”

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From $3 beers to staying at a hostel for $34 a night to $7 bike rides along the Florida Everglades, visitors looking for deals have lots of options in the area.

LODGING: If you’re adventurous and on a tight budget, consider staying in a hostel. Rooms can house anywhere between three and 14 travelers, sleeping on bunk beds, from $18 a night per person to about $40, depending on season and room size. Hostels in Miami Beach include Tropics Hotel & Hostel, 1550 Collins Ave., http://www.tropicshotel.com, Jazz on South Beach Hostel, 321 Collins Ave., http://www.jazzhostels.com/ and South Beach Hostel, 235 Washington Ave., http://www.thesouthbeachhostel.com.

For more conventional lodging, research your hotel at the one-stop shopping Web site http://www.miamihotels.com. Book a room while looking for nearby attractions, beaches and events.

MIAMI BEACH: The Lincoln Road pedestrian mall is perfect for strolls and people-watching. You’ll find dozens of restaurants and shops, along with locals walking dogs or weaving through the crowds on roller blades.

For a quick bite, check out Pizza Rustica (667 Lincoln Road, other locations on Washington Avenue), where you can get a huge slice of gourmet pizza for about $5. This is also a great spot for club-goers looking for something to fill their stomachs after a few drinks since it’s open from 11 a.m. until 3 or 4 a.m.

At 625 Lincoln Road is a hidden gem popular with the locals. Snuggled between two stores is the narrow, tiny bar called Zeke’s Roadhouse, which boasts over 80 bottled beers and drafts from around the world — each just $3. No hard alcohol is sold here, and no outside food or drinks are allowed on the premises. Keep your ID handy since bartenders check it with each purchase. No ID, no beer. If you prefer to spend your time on the sand, the beach is walking distance (and free, unless you rent the pricey beach chairs). On your stroll, check out the Art Deco architecture and ritzy hotels. Or snap some pictures at the Casa Casuarina mansion where fashion designer Gianni Versace once lived, now a luxury hotel at 1116 Ocean Drive.

A drink at a trendy hotel bar on the beach — the Delano, Setai, Shore Club, Gansevoort — can cost up to $15, but you might just run into a celebrity. Owen Wilson was spotted at the Delano while filming “Marley & Me” with Jennifer Aniston. She reportedly spent time at the Mandarin Oriental.

Many restaurants in South Beach and other touristy areas automatically add a tip (usually 15-18 percent) to the bill.

ART: The Miami Art Museum — 101 W. Flagler St., http://www.miamiartmuseum.org/ — has a unique collection of different cultural traditions of South Florida. Adults pay $8, seniors $4, free for children under 12 and students with ID; free to all on the second Saturday of each month. Also on second Saturdays, local galleries and studios in the Wynwood Art District offer free wine (or beer) on a gallery walk, 7-10 p.m. The Wynwood galleries are open other days as well.

A short cab ride away, in the heart of Miami about a mile from downtown, is Vizcaya Museum & Gardens — 3251 S. Miami Ave., http://www.vizcayamuseum.com/ — built by agricultural industrialist James Deering in 1916. The landmark property includes a main house filled with treasures from around the world, a walkway lined with fountains and foliage, 10 acres of formal gardens and a hardwood hammock overlooking Biscayne Bay. Admission for adults is $12; children 6-12, $5; ages 5 and younger free.

Not far, in the Miami suburb of Coral Gables, is the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden — 10901 Old Cutler Road, http://www.fairchildgarden.org/ — with an extensive collection of rare tropical plants. Stop by its verandah restaurant or garden cafe, or spend the afternoon drinking tea here. Adults pay $20; seniors $15; children 6-17, $10. Admission is pay as you wish on the first Wednesday of each month (next two, Nov. 5 and Dec. 3).

ENTERTAINMENT AND FOOD: Transit Lounge in the downtown area — 729 SW First Ave., http://www.transitlounge.us — hosts several local bands during the week that play Latin and funk music. A drink is around $6; open late (5 a.m.). If you get tired of dancing, sit along the walls adorned with paintings done by local artists and play that favorite game from childhood, Connect Four.

Calle Ocho, or Eighth Street, hosts Viernes Culturales or Cultural Fridays the last Friday of every month. The art and street festival spans four blocks lined with more than a dozen galleries, restaurants blasting Latin music and cigar shops — some offering free drinks and appetizers. Stages are set up for live music. Organizers say the Latin festival attracts over 10,000 people to the heart of Little Havana. Dancing and cigar smoking is encouraged.

While on Calle Ocho, don’t miss the Cuban food and coffee at Little Havana’s famed Versailles Restaurant, 3555 SW Eighth St., a required stop for vote-seeking politicians — including, most recently, Republican presidential contenders Rudy Giuliani and Mike Huckabee.

NATURE: The best way to see South Florida’s alligator-infested waters is riding an airboat through the Everglades. Everglades Alligator Farm is about 35 miles south of Miami in Homestead, http://www.everglades.com, while Everglades Safari Park is about 15 miles west on the Tamiami Trail, http://www.evsafaripark.com/. Both places offer a chance to experience Florida’s river of grass up close. You can even take a picture holding a baby alligator or watch an alligator show. The adventure, airboat and all, costs about $23 for adults, $15 or less for children. Both Web sites offer printable discount coupons.

Also in Homestead, Shark Valley Tram Tours — http://www.sharkvalleytramtours.com/ — rents bikes for $6.50 an hour. A 15-mile nature trail through the northern region of Everglades National Park takes two to three hours. If you’d rather rest your feet, a two-hour guided tram ride with wildlife viewing and a stop at the Shark Valley observation tower for a panoramic view of the Everglades costs $15.25 ($9.25 for ages 3-12). (Access to Shark Valley was limited in early October due to flooding, with tram tours suspended and bike routes limited, so check on conditions before you plan a trip there.)

The fee for car entry to Everglades National Park is $10, good for seven consecutive days, or $5 per person on foot, bike or motorcycle; http://www.nps.gov/ever/.

TRANSPORTATION: Miami lacks comprehensive public transportation, but there are economical ways to get around. You can’t miss the big blue Super Shuttle vans from the airport to the beach and Miami hotels, $20 plus tip. The Tri-Rail is a convenient, affordable way to navigate the region, with stops including area airports, Fort Lauderdale, Delray Beach, Boca Raton and West Palm Beach. One-way fares are $2-$5.50, all-day $4 weekend fare.

Taxis are widely available if you prefer not to rent a car. A ride from the airport to the beach can cost about $30-35.

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Spirit: the warmth of the people of Hawaii that wonderfully complements the Islands’ perfect temperatures.

There are primarily six major islands to visit in Hawaii: Kauai, Oahu, Molokai, Lanai, Maui, and Hawaii’s Big island. You’ll find each island has its own distinct personality and offers its own adventures, activities, and sightseeing opportunities. We invite you to explore all of Hawaii to find the unique island experience for you.

Hawaii Quick Facts:

• Kauai’s incredible Waimea Canyon is 10 miles long, and one mile wide.
• Duke Kahanamoku, the “Father of Modern Surfing,” grew up in Waikiki on Oahu.
• The tallest sea cliffs in the world can be found on Molokai’s north side.
• A hulking ship is still trapped in the waters of Shipwreck Beach on Lanai.
• The crater of Haleakala on Maui is roughly the size of the island of Manhattan.
• Kileaua Volcano in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park on Hawaii’s Big Island is the world’s most active volcano.

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