Sea turtle, Hawaii

Situated on the western shores of the sleepy Big Island, the Fairmont Orchid sits amid golf courses and resorts on the Kohala Coast.

When we visited last year,  I loved the palpable sense of escape: far from laundry bags and shopping lists, we swam in a protected cove frequented by sea turtles and played Scrabble late into the night in the hotel bar. The grounds around the hotel beg for an early morning stroll along the beach.

In April, our fellow hotel-goers included lots of business-types on a corporate retreat, lots of couples and some families. It’s a comfortable day’s drive out to the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park (and the weird eggy sulfur smell that will cling to your clothes for days) or Kona.

If you’re on a romantic retreat, visit the “Spa Without Walls,” where you can have side-by-side massages on the beach, or clink glasses while you watch the sun set over the ocean at the bar by the pool.

sea turtle image from wikimedia commons