AS your family gathered over Easter or communicated best wishes across continents by phone, talk of upcoming summer travel was likely mentioned, "Where are you going this year?", "Will the family be near here for a visit?"

Whether you're thinking of a full-scale holiday, a weekend break or Cup Match, it's time to start planning. Possibilities are only limited by time, imagination and budget.

Let's look at a cross-section of diverse possibilities just to get the wanderlust percolating. With lower airfares hopefully part of your travel future and an ever-growing number of very affordable accommodations spreading across the east coast, there's no lack of options.

: Just because assorted Vanderbilts, Astors and merchants of industry built their mammoth 70-room summer mansions along its shore, doesn't mean it takes a fortune to visit there. Long famed as a yachting and sailing centre, its summer calendar is full of water-oriented events, music festivals, polo matches and a long list of attractions and celebrations.

Only 50 miles from Boston, it's easily accessible. Sunset Music Festival attracts audiences to the Newport Yacht Centre from June into July.

Unique is a July music festival of world-renowned classical artists actually held in those incomparable mansions with their acres of imported marble, inlaid mosaic floors and every imaginable display of conspicuous consumption. They helped put Newport atop the Social Register and you'll want to schedule time to tour some of them.

With names like The Breakers, Chateau sur Mer and Marble House, they are sumptuous beyond imagination. Rosecliff, designed by Stanford White, was used as the location for and .

Music's grand finale features two special events ? the Newport Folk Fest from July 15-16 followed by a Jazz Festival from August 11-13. There's even a kite festival which goes so far as to offer advice on enhancing one's kite-flying skills . . . something at which Bermudians already excel

In case you're wondering, the state's name comes form early navigator explorer Giovanni Verranzzano who in the 1520s compared it to Rhodes, Greece in appearance. Nowadays everyone thinks of it in connection with those opulent mansions' multimillionaires of the late 1800s called "summer cottages".

It somehow seems appropriate that polo was played in the US for the first time there in 1876. But there's more to its landscape than reminders of a gilded past. On my first visit in 1975, tobacco heiress Doris Duke was still alive and very much involved in historic preservation of its more modest, but very impressive colonial past, which remains a major attraction today. Her very elegant residence is another tourist attraction. Learn more about the area at www.visitrhodesisland.com

: Do you have a child or grandchild whose happiest moments are sports centred? If their interest includes baseball, a unique multi-generational trip is being offered by Generations Touring Company. It's only one of many such sports-oriented trips your travel agent will know about. They've become very popular with grandparents and their adult children or grandchildren.

This particular offering hopscotches from New York to Cooperstown in time for this year's Hall of Fame induction ceremony on July 30. It starts on July 27 with dinner at Mickey Mantle's New York City restaurant. Next day, there's a guided tour of Yankee Stadium with lunch at Foleys where a New York sportswriter will be guest of honour.

Two days in Cooperstown with 30-40 Hall of Famers signing balls and roaming around the Baseball Hall of Fame Museum is the centrepiece of the trip. Then it's on to Boston's Fenway Park for another behind-the-scenes tour. Complete itinerary can be viewed on the Internet by typing in Generations Touring Company and then "Baseball's Sacred Grounds" tour. They are happy to work with your travel agent.

Groups are intentionally small, no more than 20 participants. Prices start at $2,249 per person for adults and $2,199 for children 12 and under. That price includes accommodations, breakfast, five dinners, one lunch, motor coach, admission fees and game tickets. Air is not included.

Those interested in this kind of experience can ask their travel agent about the variety of special sports-oriented camps. If an organised tour seems too restricted, you might consider visiting Cooperstown exclusively.

250 miles from Boston and 270 miles from Philadelphia, its routing is via expressways. Once there, four-star Otesaga Resort Hotel on Otesega Lake awaits, as does 18-hole Leatherstocking Golf Course. There's also the Cooper Inn, a Federal-style manor house. View them at www.otesaga.com.

Baseball's milestones through two centuries of the game fascinate all ages.

The Hall of Fame site is more than just a museum, but offers plenty of hands-on activity and interactive events, so check out www.baseballhalloffame.org; (888) 425-5633; www.cooperstowngetaway.org.

Cooperstown also has the noted Fennimore Art Museum renowned for its collection of American Indian Art. This rural region surrounded by rolling hills is justly proud of its Famers Museum with many restored 1840s historic buildings and children's barnyard where youngsters enjoy feeding young farm animals.

As youngsters, our village green was the location where a parade of prominent sports stars appeared with regularity. We were naive enough at that age to think everyone everywhere enjoyed the same attention from nationally acclaimed sports figures that our small group did.

It was all very relaxed and low-key. Didn't everyone have noted Chicago Cubs, both past and present, come to their local park to visit, hang out, offer hints to improve one's game? It happened so frequently and was so neighbourly, no one even thought to ask for autographs.

In today's very different world where players command multi-million-dollar salaries and one has to pay to meet them and get an autograph, this was all not only extraordinarily friendly, but free!

Names like Rogers Hornsby, Hack Wilson, Gabby Hartnett, Ernie Banks, Bill Veeck, Grover Cleveland Alexander, Phil Cavarretta, Hank Sauer . . . so many it would take a column to list them all. And they actually gave you the impression you were doing them a favour to come.

Years later we learned how privileged we'd been. Chicago Cubs owner William Wrigley, and later son P.K. Wrigley, lived in our village, along with Will Harridge, president of Baseball's American League, and Avery Brundage, president of the International Olympic Committee. So do the Wirtz family, owners of the Blackhawks hockey team. Another generous far-sighted sportsman donated half a million dollars in the 1970s to build a curling rink at the same village green long before that sport gained popularity in the US and Olympics status.

Turns out those sports-oriented villagers had a hand in the parade of celebrity athletes at our village green.

I can't resist detouring back to Hack Wilson, one of the Chicago Cubs' legendary and very colourful players. Oft told is an anecdote involving a doctor trying to break his frequently reported heavy drinking habits.

The doctor took two glasses, filled one with water, the other with high-proof whisky, dropping a live worm into each glass. The one in whisky promptly died. When asked if he got the message, the irrepressible Wilson responded: "Yup . . . if I drink alcohol, I'll never have worms."

: In 1771 this Maryland County ceded 36 square miles to the Federal Government to create America's capital. Today some visitors to Washington, DC opt to stay in Maryland and commute to the nation's capital for sightseeing.

Local communities include such familiar names as Bethesda, Chevy Chase, Potomac and Silver Springs and some surprisingly well-preserved historic locations.

Among interesting sights are the Clara Barton National Historic Site at Glen Echo. The 19th-century home of the famed Civil War nurse became first headquarters of the American Red Cross after she established that organisation.

Spring was founded by Quakers in the early 18th century and became home to one of America's oldest free black communities because Quakers opposed slavery and were active in the Emancipation movement.

The Underground Railroad had a strong presence here. Visitors can learn about it at the Sandy Spring Slave Museum (www.Sandyspringslavemuseum.org) and Sandy Spring Museum. Silver Spring is the location of the Seventh Day Adventist Church World Headquarters. Exhibits and displays there trace church history.

The new much-publicised music centre at Strathmore has a full calendar of summer events. Sightseers can explore remains of the old Chesapeake and Ohio Canal at Potomac's National Historic Site. The rural countryside comes as a surprise to those who like to get off the beaten path.

How can there still be back country roads, rolling farmland, weathered barns, 18th-century colonial homes and Civil War memories so close to the bustle and crowds so often encountered at Washington's attractions?

Here it's possible to combine the best of both.

This is only a small sample of possibilities that exist, even for long weekend wanderers.