The question keeps popping up: Where do...

The question keeps popping up: Where do travel writers go on their vacations? While I can’t speak for others, in my own case I remain close to home. Near Laguna we have a favorite cove, which is where our sons spent their growing-up years and where now our eldest son’s children look forward to this tradition with similar enthusiasm. It is what a relaxing vacation is all about: no long flights, no packing and unpacking, no sightseeing. Unless, of course, one considers sightseeing to be a hike along a deserted beach at dawn when the world is fresh and the air is fragrant with salt and kelp. We read and swim and study sandpipers and porpoises that surface beyond the breaker line. At night, waves spend themselves just outside our bedroom window and the heaven fills with stars and the moon casts its silver path on the ocean. Finally, as summer ends we return home, reluctantly, for a year seems a long time to wait for another summer that is always gone too soon, leaving each of us with the melancholy wish that it could go on . . . endlessly.

After leaving Laguna this summer, we drove up the coast to the little seaside village of Cambria, which is north of San Luis Obispo and a few miles south of Hearst Castle, and there we discovered a superb inn called Sand Pebbles on Moonstone Beach. At Sand Pebbles, comforters match the drapes and there are iron and brass and four-poster beds and country wallpaper, as well as individual fireplaces and baskets of flowers. And books--loads of books. Sand Pebbles is an inn of great warmth, whether on a starry evening or a stormy night . . . while the voice of the ocean provides its symphony in a darkened world that seems for the moment, at least, to be at peace.

Sand Pebbles Inn, 6252 Moonstone Beach, Cambria, Calif. 93428, (805) 927-5600. Rates: $65/$145 low season (Oct. 1/April 30), $75/$175 high season (May 1/Sept. 30), including a continental breakfast and afternoon refreshments.

Soviet Union: Until recently, Soviet citizens avoided American visitors as though they were a combination of poison ivy and the German measles. The KGB seemed always to be waiting in the wings. This, though, was before glasnost and the meltdown of the Cold War. So it comes as little surprise that the B&B; epidemic has spread to the Soviet Union. Imagine, borscht for breakfast and a shot of Stoli at bedtime.

Amico International, which is handling the reservations, waxes poetically about “caring families and home-cooked Russian breakfasts.” The Soviets will even serve up dinner. To bridge the language gap, each home has an English-speaking member. Host families are found in Moscow, Tblisi and Tashkent, and soon Leningrad, Kiev and Sochi will be added to the system. Besides B&Bs;, Amico International represents apartment owners with maid service. The company promises prompt bookings, cutting through the red tape often encountered with Intourist. Amico also arranges issuance of Soviet tourist visas.

Amico International, 13113 Ideal Drive, Silver Spring, Md. 20906, (301) 942-3770. B&B; rates: $75/$85 per night. Apartments rent for $1,000 a week.

Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania’s Bucks County is one of those bucolic places that’s particularly inviting during autumn. Shady towpaths, riverside restaurants, covered bridges. (Pearl S. Buck produced several of her prize-winning novels here.) Vacationers board mule-drawn barges and go canoeing and biking and hole up in a number of snug country inns. A new 20-page travel guide and map provides the details. Loads of information on B&Bs;, country inns, hotels/motels, campgrounds, restaurants, sightseeing, wineries, shopping, entertainment.

I have a particular fondness for the village of New Hope, with its shops and galleries--and especially Odette’s, a restaurant with dining rooms on the Delaware where romantics gather to sip wine while candles glow and the river flows by. Travelers check in at the 275-year-old Pear & Partridge Inn at Doylestown, the Golden Pheasant on River Road in Erwinna, Pa., and the award-winning Wedgewood Inn at New Hope.

For copies of the guide and map, write to Bucks County Tourist Commission, P.O. Box 912, Department 62, Doylestown, Pa. 18901.

Film Directory: The British Tourist Authority has put together a brochure for film buffs that tracks down settings throughout Britain for movies/TV dramas that have been popular on the tube in the United States. Zeros in on scenes from “Brideshead Revisited,” and the jetty on the south coast of England where Meryl Streep appeared in “The French Lieutenant’s Woman.” Travelers are led to Hampton Court Palace, where “A Man for All Seasons” was filmed, and to the villages of Thomas Hardy country in southwest England that appeared in “Far From the Madding Crowd.” Other pages deal with “Chariots of Fire,” Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Kidnapped,” TV’s “Mystery” series, “The Citadel,” “Upstairs Downstairs,” “The Prisoner,” “David Copperfield,” “Wuthering Heights” and “Brief Encounter.” A total of nearly 80 locations spotlighting castles, historic homes, cities/villages. This plus London’s Museum of the Moving Image with its movie/TV paraphernalia and the National Museum of Photography, Film & Television in northern England.

Copies from the British Tourist Authority, 350 S. Figueroa St., Suite 450, Los Angeles 90071, (213) 628-3525.

French Rentals: Prices for accommodations listed by France Grandes Vacances in Travel Tips last May will remain in effect during the remainder of 1990. Villas along the South Coast start at $750 per week. Apartments at Villefrance-sur-Mer or Cagnes-sur-Mer on the Riviera are available for as little as $350 (seven days). Besides France, the company provides bookings for travelers at more than 3,000 apartments, condominiums, hotels, country houses, chalets in other European countries: Belgium, Switzerland, Germany, Spain, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Greece, Yugoslavia and the British Isles. Color photos/descriptions of individual properties provided on request.

Details from your travel agent or by contacting France Grandes Vacances, P.O. Box 90385, 1006 BJ Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

French Guide: A 48-page guide to hundreds of welcome centers in France is being mailed free to travelers. Covers 23 provinces. The pocket-size reference lists centers alphabetically/by city. Contains addresses of selected hotels, restaurants, car rental agencies, department stores. Available from the French Government Tourist Office, 9454 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 303, Beverly Hills 90212, or by writing to Dept. Welcome Centers, French Government Tourist Office, P.O. Box 2658, Lake Ronkonkoma, N.Y. 11779. Copies can also be ordered by phoning “France-on-Call” (50 cents per minute) at (900) 420-2003.

Half Moon Bay: We’ve been getting reports about a B&B; in Half Moon Bay called Zaballa House, the community’s oldest dwelling. A Cap Cod-style cottage (circa 1859). Five guest rooms with private baths (clawfoot or whirlpool tubs/showers). Furniture from the Sheraton Palace in San Francisco. Some rooms with fireplaces. Others feature queen beds, garden views. The owner describes Room No. 4 as a hideaway for lovers. All-you-can-eat breakfasts served daily. Guests are welcome to use the kitchen.

Zaballa House B&B;, 324 Main St., Half Moon Bay, Calif. 94019, (415) 726-9123. Rates: $65/$135.

Acapulco With Style: Four private homes at the Villa Vera Hotel & Racquet Club have been placed in a rental pool. Live like a movie star, say the folks at Villa Vera. Maids unpack your bags, someone else does the cooking. Security is provided around the clock. Tennis courts, a private swimming pool, a palapa for entertaining guests. (Entertainer Bob Hope occupied one of the casas earlier this year.) It’s not cheap ($450/$1,100 per day), but with two to four bedrooms divided among couples, the rates become affordable. Details from Villa Vera Hotel & Racquet Club, c/o Robert Reid & Associates, (800) 223-6510.

Hawaii Dive: Circle Island Tours on Hawaii’s island of Lanai is offering snorkeling/scuba diving trips to vacationers. Beginner and advanced instruction. Circle Island provides masks, snorkels, fins, flotation gear. Snacks/soft drinks are part of the package. Details from RockResorts, 680 Iwilei Road, Suite 540, Honolulu, Hawaii 96817. Other activities: whale-watching sails, visits to Shipwreck Beach, picnics, riding/hiking, deep sea fishing.