Visit these islands!!!!!

San Juan (Washington State) is the most populated island of its eponymous chain—so relatively cosmopolitan that its largest town, Friday Harbor, is dubbed “Sin City” by residents of other islands because of its wider selection of bars. Still, urban misbehaving isn’t what you first notice here: It’s the bucolic photo ops, captured on cliffside drives and yacht-bedecked harbors.









Kauai is exactly what people picture when they imagine Hawaii--jungles, waterfalls, cliffs dropping down to turquoise ocean. Along Kauai’s North Shore, natural beauty soars to the supernatural; on the south side, sprawling beaches make for family-friendly getaways.












Smack in the middle of the San Francisco Bay, Angel Island is a car-less hiker’s paradise, with knockout views of the city and the hills of Marin County. Once the last ferry leaves, the only people left are those who scored one of the island’s 11 campsites.

It takes your catamaran roughly an hour to cross the Santa Barbara Channel from the Southern California mainland to Scorpion Anchorage on Santa Cruz, part of the Channel Islands. And during that time, the world with all its worries falls away. The pretty cobbled beach is just a launching point: From here, you can snorkel in the diverse kelp forest just off the beach or paddle a kayak farther out, past the island’s dark cliffs and sea caves. On the short hike from the beach up Smugglers Road to the high bluff and the stand of cypress pines known as Delphine’s Grove, you’ll fall under the spell of a sweeping ocean view and the sound of the wind in the boughs.




Arriving on Isla Espíritu Santo (Mexico Baja) feels like sailing into a Maxfield Parrish painting—burnt sienna cliffs jutting out of cerulean waves. This desert isle’s population is big—if you count pelicans, parrot fish, and dolphins. If you count people? It’s uninhabited.