Bangkok is a city to overload the senses. Streets are crowded by tuk-tuks (motorized tri-shaws) and the occasional elephant weaving through congested traffic.

Glamorous Santorini, in the southern Aegean's Cyclades islands, curves round a giant lagoon, a caldera left by a volcanic eruption.

A gorgeous backdrop of pine-clad mountains looms behind the seaside resort of Marmaris in southwest Turkey. Popular as a cruise ship and yacht port and with the British budget holiday crowd, Marmaris offers an abundance of fast food restaurants, the restored castle of Suleyman the Magnificent and an appealing cobblestoned old quarter.

If watching the sunrise from atop a 10,000-foot volcano, swimming under waterfalls, hiking through craters and luxuriating on white-, red- and even black-sand beaches sounds like paradise, then Maui awaits.