Paradise

WAIANAE, Hawaii -- The home sits on property with a million-dollar view, but its plastic roof is held down by bungee cords, its only source of lighting is a few crude lanterns, its floor is covered with sand. From here, Bert Bustamante looks out on paradise. Each evening, the sunset turns the Pacific Ocean several shades of pink and orange, turquoise and glowing blue. The dolphins come, and the whales, sometimes the seals. Bustamante's children surf and swim; his son goes out with spear and net and brings home fish and octopus and squid for dinner.

I admit it: when it comes to travel, I'm a snob. I'm only interested in the "real." I would rather eat guinea pig in a Mongolian yurt than sleep on a feather pillow in a $1,000-per-night luxury resort. But with the summer rapidly dwindling, my wife Shelly and I were looking for a quick, easy and inexpensive escape. We settled on Grand Bahama Island. I resigned myself to the simple pleasures of frolicking in the ocean. I certainly didn't expect anything more. Sure enough, by the end of the first day at our massive beachfront hotel, I was bored.

LITTLE GASPARILLA ISLAND, Fla. -- All Susan Leydon has to do is stick her head outside and take a deep breath of sea air, and she can tell whether her 10-year-old son is about to get sick. If she coughs or feels a tickle in the back of her throat, she lays down the law: No playing on the beach. No, not even in the yard. Come back inside. Now. The Leydons thought they found paradise a decade ago when they moved from Massachusetts to this narrow barrier island, reachable only by boat, with gentle surf and balmy air that feels like velvet on the skin.

A summer night in paradise, supper in the back yard, and the neighbors' elderly cat, who is on his last legs, wanders over, smelling the salmon on our grill, walking as if his feet hurt. He's got the old cat blues. He wakes up in the morning and everything tastes like turpentine; he feels like going down to the railroad line and letting the 4:19 pacify his troubled mind. My wife serves him a piece of salmon and he eats slowly, savoring the fish oil. He is 15 years old, and this likely will be his last summer, and a fine one it is. In Minnesota, we look forward to these warm summer nights.

The thing we hear over and over is people want the freedom and the relaxation. It's like, `Hey, Marge, the kids are gone, the dog's dead, this looks like a hoot.'" JOE LETTELLEIR, owner of Paradise Lakes nudist resort in Florida, on why the state's nude tourism industry is growing; he says the average age of the resort's 6,000 members is 50, and it attracts 80,000 visitors a year

An open letter to Randy Johnson: Perhaps you were on to something when you recently said you'd "walk away" if you could no longer pitch like you used to. If you think about it, retirement to your home in awfully idyllic-sounding Paradise Valley, Ariz., offers you a lot of pluses. For instance, there are no umpires to mess up your day in Paradise Valley. There are no teammates to let you down, to fumble grounders and to drop fly balls. You and I know who I mean, Randy. Yes, Alex Rodriguez, who makes more than you (the indignity of it all!

Love in paradise with a younger man restores a workaholic (Angela Bassett, above) in How Stella Got Her Groove Back (8 p.m.-10 p.m., BET).

Bruce Beehler has enshrined the moment in August 1959, when he first glimpsed the future perching in a tree at Lake Roland. Picnicking with his family in Baltimore County, the 8-year-old boy happened to look up and spot a red-bellied woodpecker. "At the time, I didn't know what the hell it was," he says. "I just knew it was the most beautiful thing. And it's been all downhill ever since." As it turns out, the Baltimore-born naturalist was meant not only to marvel over birds, but to infect others with his passion.

Long waits at airports for international destinations and inevitable travel glitches these days can make older singles think twice before spending money on exotic vacations. My 84-year-old mother, for example, didn't want to navigate the travel waters alone anymore but was eager for a winter trip to the Caribbean -- specifically to explore the old-style West Indies island of Nevis. A mother-daughter excursion -- with Mom as seasoned traveler and me on hand to smooth any bumps along the way -- yielded an ideal vacation for us in January.