They're not cheap in high season - Corsica is a sophisticated and unpackaged island - but the prices do include flights plus

They're not cheap in high season - Corsica is a sophisticated and unpackaged island - but the prices do include flights, plus car hire with unlimited mileage to explore the island's mountainous interior, eccentric little Bonifacio and Napoleon's museum at Ajaccio.If you want to be right on the beach, Casa Joel at Isolella is a two- bedroomed house with steps directly down to the sand from the garden. Two weeks for two people costs pounds 2,200, and one or two children can join the party at pounds 195 each.Four hundred metres above the beach at Palombaggia, south of Porto Vecchio, the Funtana Marina apartments cost pounds 2,190 for a couple, children pounds 195. For a taste of more traditional Corsica, a hillside village house in Farinole, which lies two miles from the coast, costs pounds 1,805 for a couple, with extra holidaymakers at pounds 195 each, though steep stairs and a roof terrace make this unsuitable for children.Voyages Ilena 0171-924 4440HAVANA NICE DAYGreat beaches and low costs in the off-peak Caribbean summer season have encouraged specialist operator Regent Holidays to offer return flights to Cuba for just pounds 445 in August, and pounds 415 in September - which also includes one return domestic flight within the island itself. The firm can arrange accommodation for about pounds 30 a night for two people, though at Varadero, where most sun-and-sand addicts head, prices are considerably higher. A fortnight's all-inclusive holiday in August at the Club Amigo Bucanero, at Santiago on the south coast, costs pounds 770 It's a pity, though, to stick to the beach entirely. Why not use the free domestic flight for trips to the capital, Havana, or to the World Heritage town of Trinidad?Regent Holidays 0117 921 1711THE OTHER ATLANTIC ISLEWhile the garden isle of Madeira is not known for its beaches, little sister Porto Santo has one of the best in the Atlantic islands - five miles long, golden and uncluttered. For those looking for a holiday at a slower pace, Cadogan Travel has rooms there; a week's holiday in August at the beachside Luamar Aparthotel costs pounds 481 each b&b, with flights.

The company can also combine a stay on the island with a few nights on the busier and more mountainous Madeira.Cadogan Travel 01703 332661A PIECE OF CAIQUEA new Greek adventure trip from Explore Worldwide, on board a traditional wooden caique (sailing vessel), steers clear of busy tourist resorts. Instead, it takes in secluded beaches and bays on uninhabited and unspoilt private islands in the Saronic Gulf, off the eastern Peloponnese. Among them are Spetsopoula, Dokos and Angistri, as well as the better-known Poros, Hydra and Aegina. Exploring Byzantine and classical ruins, old monasteries and villages on the Adriatic coast is also on the agenda, as well as nine days of snorkelling and swimming. The cost of the cruise on the Seatrek is pounds 439, which includes flights and b&b accommodation on the boat.Explore Worldwide 01252 319448CHIC AND CHEERFUL FLORIDAArt Deco South Beach, the mecca for young trendsetters in Miami Beach, Florida, has recently been added to the Funway holiday programme of American short breaks. Once dying of old age, the 10 blocks of Ocean Drive are a parade of art galleries, chic restaurants, nightclubs, bleached surfies and models, plus television crews trying to capture the mood of the Nineties.

Funway offers small "boutique" properties, including the Cavalier and Leslie Hotels, their interiors designed by Barbara Hulanicki of Biba fame. Holidays are from two to seven nights, and the shorter breaks must include a Saturday night Car rental can be arranged from pounds 3 a day. Two-night breaks which include flights and accommodation (but no meals) cost from pounds 458 in September, pounds 564 in July and August; much more economical are four nights from pounds 468 and pounds 569, and seven nights from pounds 525 and pounds 629 respectively.Funway 0181-466 0222BANGKOK, THE MALDIVES AND MEXICOSeveral summer offers to faraway destinations are listed in the latest "Limited Edition" brochure from Kuoni. They include an eight-night holiday to Penang, staying at the Feringhi Beach Hotel on a room-only basis, for pounds 499 in August - a saving of pounds 170 - and a 14-night multi-centre holiday to Bangkok, Penang and Singapore for just pounds 699. A week's half-board holiday in the Maldives costs pounds 629.Heading west, pounds 529 will buy you a week in Mexico's Cancun, a resort with little or no atmosphere but within relatively easy reach of the great Mayan pyramid at Chichen Itza, and Merida, the capital of Yucatan. These are no-frills packages, using basic or medium-grade accommodation out of season; frequently, there are no meals included in the prices. However, many packaged offers are priced lower than the return air fares alone.Kuoni 01306 740888; "Limited Editions" brochures are also available from travel agentsTHE CANARIES FOR A SONGThe most relaxed and uncommercial of the Canary islands - the second largest, Fuerteventura - is blessed with the best beaches.

These vast, flat stretches - lonely and desolate in places, even in midsummer - are a magnet for windsurfers, with rolling dunes reminiscent of the Sahara. Resorts on Fuerteventura are small and low-key, the best being at Caleta des Fustes, where Thomson Summer Sun Holidays offers high-season self- catering bungalows and apartments for pounds 412 per person for 14 nights, dropping to pounds 346 from 9 September. Car hire on the island is reasonably priced, starting at pounds 55 for three days - probably long enough to explore adequately the interior, a contrasting jumble of fertile palm-studded slopes, atmospheric volcanic valleys, sleepy little towns, whitewashed churches and old windmills.Thomson Summer Sun 0171-707 9000NO RAIN IN SPAINShort breaks to the costas are rare in high season, but Spanish specialist Mundicolor offers three nights at the luxury five-star Andalucian-style Hotel Puente Romano, on a sandy beach two miles west of a cleaned-up Marbella, costing pounds 478 for b&b and return flights. They can go from a standing start to a full gallop in a couple of seconds, brake even faster, spin through 180 degrees and then pound off once more.At times it would have been almost balletic, had it not been for the persistent accompaniment of Terry Hanlon, the "voice of polo".

On the blue-blazered, upper-class polo circuit, Hanlon seems to be the closest they get to a bit of rough, and his roars and whoops - "it's KP, it's KP, come on KP!" he yelled as Packer bore down on the goal - ripped through Cowdray's otherwise torpid atmosphere."The chips are in the pan and you can hear 'em sizzling," Hanlon announced as the match entered the final chukka with the Whites still leading, by 10 goals to six. And if at times the scene resembled the front line at Agincourt, at others there was considerable skill and athleticism to appreciate, not least from the ponies.The word "pony" summons images from Thelwell, but polo ponies are big, almost 15 hands high, which only makes their mobility all the more remarkable. Having started the match a goal to the good (another quirk of the handicapping system), the Whites put a further four through the posts before two of the six seven-minute chukkas which make up a match had been completed. He clouted the ball with admirable gusto, even if his ponies did seem to take a little more time to hit their stride than those of his colleagues. It is a little like Jack Walker insisting on keeping goal for Blackburn as a reward for his investment.Not that Packer failed to punch his weight. In the Gold Cup, the sum of the handicaps must be no more than 22, so with one Whites player on 10, and another rated nine, the way was clear for Packer (rating: one) to form a formidable rearguard.