-- that irritability and restlessness, resulting from confinement indoors. The only remedy is a winter sunshine escape -- a vacation to warmer climes, where for a week or so we can forget the rigors of freezing temperatures, shoveling snow and flat car batteries, rejuvenating ourselves under blue skies and balmy temperatures.

But there are choices to be made - where do you go to find that sunshine? You can follow the crowds of other snowbirds who flock to Florida, The Caribbean, Hawaii and Arizona by the hundreds of thousands or, you could be a little more imaginative. Instead of doing the ordinary, you could try someplace different and away from the crowds, yet offering everything to be found in those other winter retreats plus a lot more, including top quality golf. Consider a really international travel experience that will be much more interesting and where you are far less likely to bump into other vacationers from your hometown.

If this sounds a little too rich for your blood, don't believe it, the entire trip could well cost less than heading to those more common destinations, over-run with sun-seeking tourists, where winter is high season and prices are at their peak.

Instead of heading south or west, think Europe and one of the continent's best-kept secrets, the sunny, southern shores of charming Portugal. This is The Algarve, a stunning, 90-mile long coastline of Atlantic washed beaches, coves and inlets, frequented during the winter months by only the privileged few, who jealously keep this secret winter paradise to themselves.

Barely 6-hours from our own east coast, The Algarve is closer to New York than Hawaii by half, about the same travel time as California and only an hour further away from the Big Apple than most Caribbean countries. Making a good thing even better, airfares to Portugal are at their lowest from late summer until late spring, just when flights to those other places are at their most expensive.

read more at http://www.pgatour.com/2008/tourlife/travel/01/22/trans_atlantic/