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We went over to Cabo San Lucas. Whew it is hot and humid. My hair dried in 5 minutes. My body has tanned in places you will not see. My husband is at the black jack game and I am sunbathing. I want a coke from the mini bar badly, but my old values of paying extra are getting in the way. Oh the heck with it. I have the ice, the can snaps open, the deed is done and I am sipping. Nice.

Tonight our room and balcony is positioned west so that the sun is stunning. Sip, sip, getting good at it and feeling guilt free. In Cabo, we sat in a place that only people who live in the town would sit. They were eating huge ice cream sundae bowls full of fresh fish in a red sauce. When each person received their bowl, they put in gallons of hot sauce. They ate like they were in a grand palace. They were enjoying their food. One man ate up a plate of tacos, then asked for another, down it and asked for more. Oh my, he squeezed lime juice over every little bite. He even squeezed the remaining juice on his little finger and sucked it. The sights of travel are priceless.

Starwood has two properties in Cabo San Lucas, including the Westin Resort & Spa, Los Cabos.

Buenos Aires is often called the "Paris of South America," and lives up to that billing. 19th century European-style buildings lined both sides of Avenida de Mayo and other major streets, and even the people themselves, descended mostly from Italian and Spanish immigrants, are more reminiscent of Europe than South America. Café Tortoni, where we stopped for lunch, fit this mold with its dark wood and tall columns, and an art nouveau influence on the artwork and lamps.

Buenos Aires, like Paris, is also a city of neighborhoods, and better yet, most of them are walkable and not far from downtown. San Telmo was one of our favorites. Away from the hustle of downtown, San Telmo retains a more traditional feel with its cobblestone streets and two- or three-story European-style buildings, most with balconies providing perches for potted plants enjoying the cloudless, sunny day.

Every Sunday, San Telmo's central Plaza Dorrego hosts the Feria de San Telmo, a popular flea market. Streets are closed to cars, and are taken over by juice vendors, human statues and musicians entertaining the steady stream of visitors. In Plaza Dorrego itself are dozens of booths where merchants sell antiques and trinkets like old porcelain, jewelry and silverware -- and probably a good bit of junk as well.

The elegant Recoleta neighborhood houses Buenos Aires' elite. Indeed, looking at some of the stately facades and exclusive retailers, you could be forgiven for thinking you were actually in Paris.

Starwood has five hotels in Buenos Aires, including the Park Tower, a Luxury Collection Hotel.

Mexico. Hand painted billboards; grandiose, half-finished buildings; cactus, tattered palm trees, and bougainvillea. Welcome to San Carlos - the photogenic, tourist-and-expatriate-oriented sister city to Guaymas, in the Mexican state of Sonora. Located about 250 miles south of the US-Mexico border, on the shores of the Sea of Cortez, San Carlos is a future resort town, full of retirees and boating enthusiasts, who shuffle contentedly across the two or three paved roads in this small Mexican town.

Sonora is a sparsely-populated, desert state with a convoluted coastline of several shallow anchorages that twist beneath jagged desert rock formations and mountains. The defining landscape feature in this area is Tetakawi, a large, multi-peaked rock outcropping that dominates the western end of the San Carlos harbor. Sunsets and sunrises are spectacular, as the stark red rock landscape positively glows with warmth in the low rays of the sun. In the evening, when the sun silhouettes the rocks, the thin clouds that dapple the autumn sky burst into oranges, pinks, and purples.

The most striking impression of San Carlos, however, is of silence - the town is small, uncrowded, and laid back. The crowds have not come to San Carlos. Christmas and spring break bring greater numbers of tourists, and there are the occasional tour bus stops, but for many, many weeks of the year, it's a pleasantly pokey kind of place, with lots of amenities, but few people.

Along Boulevard Beltrones, the main road in town, there are a number of good, simple restaurants: Rosa's Cantina is bright, clean, and the perfect place for a cheap, filling breakfast. For dinner, Blackie's Bar and Grill serves good fresh fish and delicious steaks, as well as decent salads and desserts. At the edge of the harbor, the sports-oriented Marina Cantina, owned by a young expat, offers wireless internet, good margaritas and sandwiches.

Welcome to the future -- welcome to Shanghai.

In Shanghai, a city (depending on who's counting) of 15 to 20 million souls, you can feel the electric crackle of progress as you make your way through the crowded sidewalks and the manic traffic. A palpable sense of excitement, ambition, and destiny fills the air. The Shanghai Maglev train hustles commuters from the Longyang Road Metro station to Pudong airport. The elevated track vaults over apartments, alleyways, and modern freeways. This sleek aerodynamic train completes the 30 kilometer trip in less than 8 minutes, reaching speeds of 430 km/hour - that's over 250 miles per hour - in near silence. Within a couple of years there will be another maglev link between Pudong and Hongqiao Airports, and by 2010 another high-speed link to Hangzhou, a scenic lakeside city some 350 km away from Shanghai - so happy weekenders will make the hundred mile trip in less than half an hour.

Witness the Oriental Pearl TV tower, an informal symbol for the city. It's more than twice as big as the Space Needle in Seattle and way more than twice as futuristic. At night, animated neon lights flicker across its immense tower - part of the jaw-dropping and futuristic Pudong skyline, best viewed from the opposite shore in the shadow of the beautifully preserved early 20th century neoclassical architecture of The Bund. A thousand other skyscrapers rise from Shanghai's always-crowded streets, many of them anonymous concrete monoliths, but others paying exuberant homage to a variety of inspirations. There's a tower topped with an enormous stylized lotus blossom, which is supposed to attract money to flow into the building. Another building is a modern interpretation of the Art Deco Chrysler building. Shanghai resembles nothing so much as a futuristic, through-the-looking-glass view of Manhattan or Tokyo, about 15 years from now. It seems that the future has arrived - in the architecture and design of this exciting Chinese metropolis. Starwood has eight hotels in Shanghai, including the St. Regis Shanghai in Pudong District.

I could say it was the ouzo I'd had that morning in Rhodes, Greece that led me to to the steaming room I found myself in, crouched stark naked on a stool while a woman threw bowls of hot water over me. But the ouzo, the stiff national Greek drink, had worn off when I consumed my big fat Greek lunch an hour earlier. So it wasn't the ouzo. How did I, then, one of the most modest people I know (even by our relatively prudish American standards) end up lying on a marble slab in a 7th-century Byzantine structure while a stranger soaped, scrubbed and rinsed me -- while my good friend perched nearby on her own naked stool?
Part of travel, I suppose, is shedding your usual ways and self, and trying out a new culture. The Turkish bath sayeth Wikipedia played an important role in cultures of the Middle East, serving as places of social gathering, ritual cleansing and as architectural structures, institutions, and (later) elements with special customs attached to them.
I knew I wanted to try this exotic custom, but having been the girl at the slumber parties who went into the bathroom to change into my pajamas, wasn't sure I could muster the guts to strip down and go for it.

This year, I spent my birthday locally at the Sheraton Universal...just a short hop from my first job at Universal Studios!

The Sheraton staff and accommodations were excellent...we stayed in the old Lanai wing overlooking the pool. It was rather charming. They tell us the 'old' Sheraton is getting a new face..as renovations have already begun!!

The staff was very sweet...and they sent over birthday cake, balloons, and candles, etc. They made me feel so special and comfortable. Late into the night, the fire torches over the pool area and made for a very nice tropical balcony view from our room!! ( In fact, perhaps we were the last occupants of the Lanai area...as reservations are no longer being booked for those rooms due to noisy construction!)

Personally, I have many memories of the old Sheraton...there were local high school proms and events held there over the years...a sentimental journey, however, I can't wait to see the new hotel upon completion!!

Lastly, my husband and I have friends coming in for New Years...and we will have another stay with them at the Sheraton Universal Hotel...so in fact we WILL have one last peek at the 'old school' Sheraton....Funny enough, it seems we are not the only ones who want a sentimental last look around!!

Better hurry up...and see you at the pool!!

If there was a defining moment that forever changed my perception of physical activity, it was a trek to Everest Base Camp. Undertaken in 1975, at a time when adventure travel was in its infancy, my partner and I were to traverse more than 400 kilometres of the most challenging terrain on the planet - with one Sherpa to guide and carry for us. But our careful preparations, strong on providing appropriate food and shelter, were woefully short on preparing our bodies. In a ludicrous, token attempt to accustom ourselves to the loads, we had circumnavigated the green at London, Shepherd's Bush - once. For a woman who was later to address her physical fitness with something approaching religious fervor - it was completely laughable.

The miracle was that we made it to Base Camp and came back in good enough shape to tell the tale. My memories of those weeks should have been of the warm, friendly people and the majesty and magnificence of their environment. Instead, I was focused on the crippling pain in my knees that made me long to walk uphill, no matter how steep or long the incline, rather than descend. Other pain came and went, as muscles, unaccustomed to physical activity, let alone of such demanding nature, screamed for respite.

But back home, something had shifted. The memories that remained were, surprisingly not of the pain, but of the exhilaration of pushing myself to my physical limit. I started running, and for the next decade I ran ten or eleven kilometres every morning of my life. I was addicted - to the endorphin hit, to a new body shape and to the liberation of disregarding caloric intake! Most mornings I saw the dawn break, I was on first name terms with the garbage men and nodding acquaintances with other early morning exercisers.