The 210-room Hotel Indigo, part of the IHG chain, is the first LEED-certified hotel in downtown San Diego and offers guests free wi-fi, hypo-allergenic hardwood floors and windows that open to the great outdoors in all rooms.

BBC: Business trip: San Diego

In 2001, while getting certified as an instructor, I talked with a couple of hotel managers, who were happy to let me use their courts.

WSJ: The hard reality of teaching tennis

Into its Luxembourg-sized patch of beach and desert, Dubai has already packed such attractions as the world's largest man-made port, its tallest and most luxurious hotel, its most capacious-ever shopping bag (certified by Guinness), and some of the flashiest events on funsters' racing and golfing calendars.

ECONOMIST: The biggest and best in a patch of beach and desert