The NY Daily News ticks off some of their favorite hotspots this summer in Latin America. A few may not exactly be terribly insightful (it’s a given Buenos Aires and Rio are great to see come late November), but there were a few good suggestions here I’d take some time to check out.

Nicaragua’s San Juan del Sur is a surfing paradise on the country’s Pacific coast that supports a thriving fishing community and promises to be uncrowded despite its emergence as one of the country’s premier vacations spots.

Belize’s St. George’s Caye is an island just a few miles off the coast of Belize City that’s home to a whopping 20 people (who gets to be mayor do you think?). Though sitting on the world’s second-largest barrier reef system in the world, Moon Travel describes the island as being “far from commercialized — on the contrary, it’s very quiet, with mostly residential homes and their docks.”

And finally, for a historic Mexican experience head to Mexico’s San Miguel de Allende, a town dating back to 1542 situated over a mile above sea level. Though a mecca for artists, performers and musicians, Fodor’s warns of the town’s descent into a “yuppie” friendly, “. . . Mexico-lite destination.” At least they’re not afraid to tell you what they really think.

And by wimps I include myself. That’s because I haven’t learned to Scuba, but I’ve also spent my life living in places where the ocean was either something you read about in textbooks (Colorado), something that was good to lounge near but not to go in unless you really love seaweed or had no fear of hypothermia (Connecticut), or something that was more synonymous with plane landings and mafia burials (New York). But if you’re looking for some of the best places in the Caribbean to whet your appetite for taking that next step to learn how to Scuba, try out some of these top spots for snorkeling.

In Dominica you can check out Champagne, a sub-aquatic sulphur spring (or volcano for the layman) in depths of only four feet, massive shipwrecks only 20 feet down in San Salvador in the Bahamas, or if you have a few months to spend lounging in warm seawater exploring the longest barrier reef in the Western Hemisphere — yes please — head to Belize’s Barrier Reef where you can see manatees, sea turtles, sting rays, sharks, and your past life spent sitting behind a desk in a windowless office slowly fading away.