From the complimentary bicycle rentals to the convenient tram system to the $50 gas credit offered on your first night stay, Sandestin Golf and Beach Resort makes it easy to leave the gas-price blues behind this summer. Once you’ve arrived at this 2,400-acre beach and bayfront destination between Pensacola and Panama City on Florida’s Northwest Gulf Coast, your only "drive time" is on one of four great courses, including the tour-caliber Raven Golf Club designed by Robert Trent Jones Jr., Rees Jones’ Burnt Pine Golf Club and Tom Jackson’s Links and Baytowne creations.

For kids, Sandestin is about "hang time"—as in the new 650-foot zip line that suspends you (safely) 52 feet over a lagoon. It’s the latest hit at the new Baytowne Adventure Zone, where there’s more fun in the form of a ropes course, rock-climbing walls and Euro-bungy, not to mention popular weekly events, activities and entertainment. With miles of sandy beaches and pristine bays, a 98-slip marina and dozens of water sports and activities, as well as more than 70 shopping, dining and nightlife venues, it all adds up to "quality time" for the entire family.

Destin, Fla.; 877-870-5917; Sandestin.com/links.aspx

Ponte Vedra Inn & Club
Pampered at a Florida Landmark

Ponte Vedra Inn & Club introduced golf to Florida in 1928; a half-century later the landmark oceanfront resort opened the area’s first spa. Both the spa and the golf continue to set ever-higher standards for luxurious leisure in this toney corner of the Sunshine State. The Lagoon Course, the resort’s newer companion to its fabled Ocean Course, is back in play after a six-month-long renovation by Bobby Weed. With several hole routing changes, improved tees, turf standards and drainage, and scenic water hazards on 11 holes, it’s a better-than-ever complement to famed British architect Herbert Bertram Strong’s original seaside links-style layout.

Also recently unveiled is an expanded, 30,000-square-foot spa facility with the latest in technologies and therapies in a lavish setting. The spa’s extensive menu of more than one hundred beauty and pampering services have made it a haven of relaxation and rejuvenation like no other. Lauded for its AAA Five-Diamond service and comforts, Ponte Vedra Inn & Club offers 250 elegantly appointed rooms and suites, most overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. To book resort packages, call 800-234-7842 or visit PVResorts.com.