Have the Beach to Yourself in Honduras

When wintry weather hits, it's natural to yearn for a sunny getaway near the water -- but everyone else is doing the same. When you arrive at that sunny patch of heaven, you're often battling the crowds for a spot on a white sand beach, going great distances to find a patch of water where you can snorkel without bumping into another person's fins or waiting on long lines to get a turn at the white water on a river.

This is not a problem in Honduras, a country that offers visitors every kind of water experience imaginable: From the black sand beaches on its Pacific coast to the white sand beaches on its Caribbean coast to the rain forests in between, crisscrossed with rivers that drop into numerous waterfalls, swimming, diving, white-water rafting, kayaking and spa treatments abound. Even during its high season, under way now, Honduras is not crowded because the country is largely undiscovered by travelers. Fewer than 800,000 stayed overnight in Honduras last year, and just 260,000 of those were from North America. And this, even though it's such a quick hop down there: The flight takes less than three hours from either Miami or Houston.

Here are the three destinations for crowd-free vacations on Honduran waters:

The River: La Ceiba

La Ceiba is Honduras' water-central, as it's on the Caribbean coast near two major national parks: Cuero y Salado Wildlife Reserve and the Pico Bonito Cloud Forest. Cuero y Salado is best for wildlife lovers -- check out the boat trips through rivers, wetlands and mangrove swamps to watch everything from bats to manatees. The Pico Bonito Cloud Forest is best for adventure seekers and offers kayaking and white-water rafting, with rapids up to class IV, on the Cangrejal River, waterfalls to swim in at the Zacate river and several nature hikes that end at secluded rainforest swimming holes on the Rio Coloradito.

The Sea: Cayos Cachinos

Cayos Cochinos is a network of islands and small keys some 19 miles off the coast from La Ceiba. The keys look exactly like the type of island guys are always getting stranded on in beer commercials -- teensy plots of land with a few palm trees, white sand beaches and turquoise water.

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