Laid-back, friendly and blessed with near-perfect weather all year round, San Diego is one of America’s most likeable cities. Enjoy a stroll through Balboa Park, dotted with beautiful Spanish Renaissance-style architecture, take a whale watching trip along the coast, or sample the nightlife of the trendy Gaslamp Quarter.

The sister towns of Cabo San Lucas and San José del Cabo sit at the tip of Mexico’s Baja California peninsula. The towns themselves are mostly given over to luxury hotels and boisterous nightlife, but the surrounding landscape is characterised by arid arroyos, bristly cacti and rocky coastal outcrops.

It’s true that Acapulco has suffered from overdevelopment, and has lost some of its lustre since its heyday as a magnet for Hollywood stars. But it’s still a buzzing party town, and even the forest of high rise hotels can’t spoil the setting, a beautiful bay where the Sierra Madre mountains meet the Pacific Ocean.

Situated on a peculiarly shaped peninsula on the Gulf of Nicoya, Puntarenas is a popular weekend beach destination for residents of Costa Rica’s capital, San José. The port itself is not pretty, but the beachfront Paseo de los Turistas is a nice place to relax with a drink or enjoy a seafood lunch.

Cartagena was founded by Spanish conquistadors in 1533, and the beautifully preserved centre is a real highlight of Colombia’s Caribbean coast. The walled old town, the Ciudad Amurallada, is a camera-friendly collection of cobbled streets and colourful, colonial-era buildings.

The tiny Dutch Caribbean island of Aruba, located just off the coast of Venezuela, lies outside of the hurricane belt, meaning it enjoys a largely dry climate, and boasts some of the best beaches in the region, if not the world.

The busiest and most developed of the Virgin Islands, St. Thomas is nevertheless blessed with typically Caribbean good looks. The main town, Charlotte Amalie, is situated on a perfect natural harbour, and in its colonial heyday its warehouses were filled with indigo, tobacco and cotton.