I just returned from almost a week in Cancun, Mexico.   Stayed at the Le Meridien while attending a symposium (and speaking at one session) at the Ritz Carlton.  Gorgeous hotels with beautiful clear waters.   It wasn’t Ocracoke.  It wasn’t Maui.  However, I enjoyed it.  When it comes to R&R my preference is really for quaint, uncommercial locales with weather topping out at 70 degrees!  (For example, in California I’d take San Luis Obispo over Santa Barbara any day of the week.  Santa Barbara is lovely, but SLO is more bohemian, less commercial and more eclectic.) 

Cancun was great for a meeting though definitely not my cup of tea for R&R.  When I’m at a hotel for a business meeting then I want all the amenities of a full-service facility.  When I really want to relax I would not choose a highly commercial locale (worst case scenario for me:  a big Miami resort .. hot, sweaty, overly flashy, commercial!)  At those times I want to be free from commercialism.  I’d rather walk on a beach as nature intended it (like Ocracoke) than look down the strand at one behemoth hotel after another.  But then again, Ocracoke Island couldn’t host a meeting of more than 12 people very easily!  I guess each has its place. Would I go back to Cancun for the hotels, beach and nightlife?  No.  Might I go just to revisit archeological sites like Tulum and Chitzen Itza? Yes.

So at the end of March we go to my version of paradise … Ocracoke Island.  The temp will be ideal, ranging between 65 and 70.  The 15-mile long, absolutely perfect beach will be free of tourists, the air will be clean and the ferry ride to the island will be dreamy.