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Outside Magazine's 2003 Family Travel Guide

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Neptune Calling
When the sea summons you, answer! Fourteen idyllic beach escapes, from Cape Cod to Sanibel.

By Meg Lukens Noonan


	Welcome to your una-beach, with all the requisite ingredients in place (Corel)

I would be lying if I told you that the vacations my husband and I take with our two daughters have been a series of far-flung, educational adrenaline fests, mounted in tireless pursuit of the kind of peak bonding moments that can come only from, say, sharing a cup of ibex-milk tea in a wind-whipped mountain shelter or spotting a giant croc from the bow of a dugout canoe. Here's the truth: In the decade-plus since we became parents, we have never done any traveling as a family that has required immunizations, mosquito netting, headlamps, or even the regular wearing of socks. When it comes to family trips, we have been and remain unrelentingly, unapologetically boring. We go to the beach.

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The skinny on Nantucket, Cape Cod, Captiva Island, and Bermuda sand lands.

We go to the beach because we are happy there. We like sand and water and a big sky. We like the way the waves line up in the first light of morning and the way the sea goes that indelible metallic blue at dusk. We like the way pelicans commit when they dive for dinner and the way sandpipers flee every surge of foam. We like the way our skin and hair feel after we've been in and out of salt water all day. We like the way there is always something interesting to do with seaweed and the way each day is open to whim and circumstance: If there is surf, we'll ride it; if there are fish, we'll try to catch them; if there is a Frisbee, we'll consider tossing it.

We've spotted starfish and sea lions. We've built hundreds of sand castles and collected thousands of shells.

We've had moments of pink-tinged transcendence (Palm Island, Florida, where we sat at twilight on a silvered driftwood log and watched dolphins leap just offshore with astonishing synchronism) and near-disasters (Kauai, with a tantrum-prone toddler who never got over jet lag and manifested it in appalling and very public ways). We've schlepped bags of canned tuna and Oreos from mainland Florida out to North Captiva Island by water taxi, and we've dined—on our very best behavior—by candlelight in Bermuda. We've played Marco Polo in countless overchlorinated pools. We've been stung by jellyfish and nipped by crabs and startled by fast-moving rays. We've spotted starfish and sea lions. We've built hundreds of sand castles and collected thousands of shells. And we have never gotten tired of going to the beach.

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