IT was over a bowl of delicious, spicy-sweet peanut soup with pesto made from huacatay, or Andean black mint, that I realized thevegetarian diner was now perfectly welcome in Buenos Aires. As a vegetarian traveling in a country where beef takes center stage, I expected my meals to be relegated to an assortment of side dishes — sautéed greens, some variation of potatoes — supplemented by the occasional granola bar. For many, myself included, the diet is not just a daily choice, but a way of life. I am a practicing Jain — a member of an ancient Indian religion that espouses ahimsa, or nonviolence toward all living beings — and my diet forbids all meat, poultry, fish and even eggs, though it does allow milk and cheese.

But during a recent visit, I was happily surprised, if not downright triumphant, to discover a cluster of recently opened restaurants serving tasty and fresh vegetarian fare. Largely concentrated in the fashionable Palermo Hollywood neighborhood and its fringes, the restaurants tend toward the homey and casual — and they cater to the full spectrum of diners who don’t eat meat.

Casa Felix

A puertas cerradas (literally “closed doors”) or private restaurant, Casa Felix offers a fine-dining experience in the charming whitewashed home of the Argentine chef Diego Felix and his wife, Sanra, in the Chacarita neighborhood. Guests, generally a dozen or so per meal, dine by appointment only (reservations can be made by phone or e-mail) and to their personal specifications (e-mailed well in advance): vegan, gluten-free, pescetarian and so forth. (Meat eaters are also welcome.) Dimly lighted and cozy, the setting provides ample opportunity to mingle with other diners.

My five-course meal began with a botanical lesson in the Felixes’ backyard, where the chef pulled at branches, plucking leaves of pineapple sage and lemon balm before passing them off to be scratched and sniffed. Those homegrown herbs and vegetables (he also grows heirloom tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, arugula and more) were the centerpieces of the menu to come.

First up, that revelatory peanut soup. Though I tend to prefer to keep my spicy and sweet separate, I was impressed by the creamy soup, which balanced nutty sweetness with just a few drops of chili oil and a teaspoon of pesto. The corn-and-squash humita — a South American dish similar to the Mexican tamale — was comforting, moist and filling. Served with a dollop of organic ricotta on top, it resembled pie à la mode. Soon the real dessert arrived: rum-soaked and sautéed apple slices, paired with a granola-like almond and date crust and kumquat cream. I quickly gobbled it up.

Casa Felix, (54-11) 4555-1882; diegofelix.com. Dinner for two, 300 Argentine pesos, or about $80 at 3.8 pesos to the dollar.

Meraviglia

This organic bakery and cafe is blissfully laid-back, the kind of place where morning meals go on for hours and newspapers are still spread open across tables at closing time in the early evening. Breakfast attracts mostly tourists; Porteños, as residents are called, are typically late risers. But by lunch, the place is bustling with local moms and strollers.

Meraviglia was the dream of Mariana Chami, 31, who is usually standing behind the register when not serving patrons. Ms. Chami suffered from acute arthritis as a child and at the suggestion of her doctor went vegetarian when she was 13. The diet seemed to cure her medical woes and she’s never turned back. When it came to creating a healthy menu for her restaurant, she recruited the talented chef Juliana López May, a Buenos Aires native who is a natural-food specialist and is often featured on El Gourmet, the Latin American equivalent of the Food Network.

My brother, who was my traveling companion, and I, both had been obsessed with the fruit juices that seemed to flow as freely as water everywhere in the city, so we started with a jug of Meraviglia’s ginger-and-mint-infused lemonade, which didn’t disappoint. Tangy and invigorating, with chunks of fibrous ginger settled at the bottom of the pitcher, it reminded me of the nimbu pani — fresh lime water — I drank as a child at my grandparents’ home in India. Moving on to our main courses, I found the falafel sandwich a bit dry, but the salad, a mix of uncomplicated ingredients — lentils, quinoa, chopped cucumber, celery, olive oil, balsamic vinegar — tasted at once hearty and fresh.

Meraviglia, Gorriti 5796; (54-11) 4775-7949; meraviglia.com.ar. Meal for two, about 48 pesos.

Buenos Aires Verde

Adorned with yoga fliers and racks of reusable canvas totes, this cheerful restaurant with orange-painted tables and teal chairs promotes healthy living — note the list of smoothies with ingredients like rejuvelac, a mildly fermented beverage made from grains and wheat grass — and spirituality as much as it does vegetarianism. The menu features dishes for vegans, vegetarians and raw-food enthusiasts. The gourd soup, for example, is made without ever bringing a pot to boil (to better retain nutrients and enzymes lost at high heat); another popular appetizer showcased marinated portobello mushrooms cooked at a low temperature and served atop crackers smeared with cashew cheese. We skipped the soup, but I found that the chewy texture of the mushrooms matched well with the crunchiness of the paper-thin flaxseed crackers; the faux cheese, made from cashew nuts, didn’t work as well. Better was the quinoa risotto, which came studded with carrots and celery, a variety of cheeses and a drizzle of garlic oil. It was warm and light, a healthier textural cousin to mac and cheese.

Chatting with a neighboring table, we were told that the group had come directly from a nearby meditation session called Art of Living. Nicky Bingham, a British expatriate who works as an Art of Living instructor, noted the changing attitude toward vegetarianism in the city: “For years, the idea of vegetarian food being tasty was incomprehensible,” she said.

Information by http://travel.nytimes.com

FIFTY years ago the Waikiki beach boys were the suntanned demigods of Honolulu’s palm-fringed shores. After the first major resort — the Moana Hotel, now the Moana Surfrider — opened in 1901, organized beach service began on Waikiki. The beach boys came to act as instructors, lifeguards and entertainers, spreading the gospel of surfing to dreamy-eyed tourists of all ages.

They also pioneered the art of stand-up paddleboarding — also known as stand-up paddle surfing or beach-boy surfing — now all the rage among fitness enthusiasts and practiced from Cape Cod to Cape Town.

In San Francisco, where I live and surf, there’s almost always a stand-up paddleboarder in the lineup on any given morning. On days when there aren’t many waves, I envy the cruise-y ease of the paddleboarder as he maneuvers through flat water, getting exercise all the while. On a recent trip to Honolulu I decided to try stand-up paddleboarding in its birthplace.

First, I sought inspiration in the archives of the venerable Bishop Museum, founded in 1889 in honor of Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop, the last descendant of the royal Kamehameha family. The museum has a renowned collection of natural and cultural artifacts from Hawaii and the Pacific Islands. Surfboards were once exclusively the province of royalty; the museum’s holdings include 19th-century wooden boards that belonged to chiefs and princesses, as well as other models that were used by the legendary surfer Duke Kahanamoku and first introduced at Waikiki.

The Waikiki beach boys began using outrigger canoe paddles with surfboards in the 1960s, as a way to keep an eye on their tourist charges and to get better pictures as the beginners made their first attempts at wave riding. Ask locals about stand-up paddleboarding, and many will reminisce about the first time they saw someone do it.

“I remember this one guy, he wore a construction helmet and had a cigar clamped in his teeth,” Charles Myers, an archivist at the Bishop Museum, told me as he brought out vintage black-and-white photos of Waikiki. “He used a paddle and stood up on this big, floaty tandem board to see above the water when he was teaching people to surf.”

As I examined photographs of fit young men surfing, swimming and paddling canoes — and even giving ukulele lessons to women on the beach — I thought of the tradition of the “waterman,” the athletic and aesthetic ideal to which ancient Hawaiian men aspired. The beach boys, the modern epitome of watermen, found joy in every kind of water sport and helped to popularize surfing as we know it.

One of the most famous was George Freeth, an accomplished swimmer and lifeguard who was the subject of a profile by Jack London in 1907. Freeth, who moved to California and became known as a pioneer of modern surfing, was awarded a Congressional medal for rescuing several fishermen during a treacherous storm in 1908.

What began as a matter of practicality for the beach boys started popping up in its modern form as a full-fledged sport in the past 5 to 10 years; there are now stand-up paddleboarding competitions all over the world, from flat-water races on rivers and lakes to big-wave ocean contests. Since the boards are large and stable in flat water, they are easy to use.

Hotels around Honolulu have capitalized on the craze; many now offer stand-up paddleboarding lessons. For my maiden voyage I ventured into the calm turquoise lagoon at the Kahala Hotel & Resort, which looks out at the Diamond Head and Koko Head craters.

The afternoon sun glinted off the water as I stood uncertainly in the warm shallows with the relevant equipment — thick 10-foot board, long, angled paddle — I’d just rented from Kahala’s beach shack. The attendant reassured me that there was nothing to it.

“Hop on the board, start on your knees and try paddling from that stance first,” he instructed, mimicking the motions as he talked. “Keep the flat of the paddle to the back when you stroke. Then try standing up, keeping your weight to the center of the board and legs slightly apart.” He paused. “That’s it.”

Oh, and one last bit of advice.

“You might want to stay away from the waves for now,” he called as I began to paddle away. “And fall shallow!”

The paddling part was easy. As I skimmed across the water, I noted how clear it was: I could see fish, seaweed-covered rocks and the wide expanse of white sand before it met the coral bank offshore. I wanted to see even more. So I tried, gingerly at first, to stand, laying the paddle across the board for stability. With a few wobbles, I was up, sea legs found.

And then I was off, cruising around the lagoon, doing laps up and back along the beach and into the next cove. I peered into little tide pools full of fish, and at the endless horizon on one side and the sandy coastline on the other. I saw sunbathers and children playing on the beach, and a wedding party posing for photos at the country club. I followed watercraft with my eyes as they sped out to sea, and traced the contrails of airplanes as they flew overhead.

There was no route to follow; I had the freedom with the board and paddle to meander around. Unlike a regular surf session, paddleboarding didn’t have me constantly hunting for waves, and I felt a larger appreciation for this newfound perspective. It’s possible to see a lot and venture far into the water without having to know how to surf. And the “anyone can do it” maxim really does hold true here. I watched a father and his young daughter push off from the beach on a single board, the girl with a child-size paddle in hand. As we cruised by each other, we exchanged gleeful waves and grins.

In sum, it was a quiet and meditative experience, and also one heck of a workout. Once I hopped off the board on shore, I was startled to find that my legs were totally spent. With all there was to see, I hadn’t even noticed that they — along with every other muscle in my body — were working all the while to keep me in balance.

The next day I headed to Waikiki, where it all began. The surf shacks up and down the beach were busy with customers itching to make their “Gidget”/“Riding Giants”/Laird Hamilton dreams a reality. With my sore muscles from the previous day’s exertions, I decided to change it up and rent a regular longboard.

As I chatted with a beach boy and set about getting my board waxed up, a 20-something man walked by. But even in Waikiki, where the tourists were out in force on the gently rolling waves, it turned out he wasn’t interested in a regular surfboard.

“Hey, you guys rent stand-up paddleboards?” he asked.

IF YOU GO

The Bishop Museum (1525 Bernice Street, Honolulu; 808-847-3511;www.bishopmuseum.org; adult admission $17.95) is open Wednesday to Monday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The historic Hawaiian Hall, which underwent an approximately $20 million restoration and recently reopened to the public, is a must-see.

Ten minutes from Waikiki, the Kahala Hotel & Resort (5000 Kahala Ave., Honolulu; 800-367-2525; www.kahalaresort.com; doubles from $415) has 338 Art Deco-style rooms and an expansive 800-foot white-sand beach. The tranquil waters in front of the resort are protected by a reef and are ideal for beginners to stand-up paddleboarding; rentals are $30 an hour.

The Waikiki beach boys — those “perpetual adolescents of the ocean, the playboys of the Pacific,” as James Michener called them — are still working the waters with Waikiki Beach Services (808-542-0608; www.waikikibeachservices.com). Stand-up paddleboard lessons are $50 an hour and rentals are $30 an hour.

Information by http://travel.nytimes.com

To cross the City Island Bridge — “Welcome to City Island, Seaport of the Bronx” — is to enter an anomaly: a small town that lives within the borders of a great metropolis, an active fishing village with a 718 area code. People like to say that City Island is a slice of New England only 15 minutes from the Cross Bronx Expressway, but in fact its atmosphere is even more peculiar. Less Cape Cod, perhaps, than a tiny, Stephen King-like town on the lonesome Maine coast.

8 A.M. Take the 6 train to Pelham Bay Park and the BX29 bus across the bridge, then settle in for breakfast at the City Island Diner, 304 City Island Avenue, at Fordham Street, (718) 885-0362. It’s a little wainscoted place with prints of sailboats and some old-timers in the back discussing dead mobsters and the ponies. Catch up on your local news with the house copy of The Island Current (the feral-cat issue is heating up) and drink the coffee, which is not only strong but practically free when amortized over the number of attentive refills you receive. With a long day ahead, go heavy: the Belgian waffle ($5.50) or the “Man Overboard” omelet ($8.95), which has everything, the menu says, except the kitchen sink.

8:45 A.M. Walk two traffic lights back toward the bridge to Jack’s Bait & Tackle, 551 City Island Avenue at Cross Street, (718) 885-2042, You can ask for Jack himself (large and ruddy) and rent a motorized dinghy ($60 a day, gas included, fits four) and some bait and tackle ($10 a person, more or less, depending on your lures). Eastchester Bay and Long Island Sound are popular fishing grounds for fluke, flounder, striped bass and, in the evenings, bluefish. Fishing, do not forget, is actually a euphemism for doing as little as possible, with beer.

1 P.M. Shake off your sea legs at the bar of Artie’s restaurant, 394 City Island Avenue, at Ditmars Street, (718) 885-9885, a brisk walk from the dinghy launch at Jack’s. This is just a snack, so order light: a vodka on the rocks ($6) and the cold scungilli salad ($11). Keep your eyes peeled for Jackie Kyle Kall, the gadfly and City Island real estate maven. Should you actually see Ms. Kall, an Artie’s regular, ask about property on King Avenue — near the bridge — which is dark and leafy and faces the Sound.

2 P.M. To get a better sense of your surroundings, walk four blocks south and make a left to the City Island Nautical Museum, 190 Fordham Street, (718) 885-0008. The museum, in an old schoolhouse, offers classic small-town memorabilia: rusty nautical gear and photos of the founders. City Island was part of a 9,000-acre piece of land that Thomas Pell, a physician, purchased in 1654 from the Siwanoy Indians.

4 P.M. Get back on the BX29 to the end of the island, then walk to Johnny’s Reef Restaurant, 2 City Island Avenue, (718) 885-2090. Among the true pleasures in life is a basket of fried seafood (clams, $10; lobster tails, $22), a $3 Heineken, and a picnic table with a view of the freighters passing Throgs Neck Point. The sun is hot, the seagulls whine hysterically, and for all the world you’re no longer in New York City.

Information by http://www.nytimes.com