TURN-ONS: Intelligence, tall, dark and handsome men.

TURN-OFFS: Hairy guys! Cheaters! Possessiveness.

FAVORITE SPORTS: Surfing, wakeboarding, snowboarding and basketball.

PLACES I’D LIKE TO GO: Anywhere in Europe, Japan, Hawaii, Australia and Tahiti.

Miss Monaco, who describes herself as "shy and reserved until you get to know me," found a way to deflect some of the attention. "I have a co-worker who looks enough like me that people think that we’re sisters," she says. "At one point, when someone came in and asked, ‘Are you Kara Monaco, that girl from Playboy?’ I said, ‘Oh no, she’s right over there.’ She got to play my body double for several weeks. It was so funny. There’s lots of guys out there who think they met me, but actually havn’t," she says.

Such shyness, however, is seldom more than a temporary condition with Kara Monaco. Though the petite 22-year-old starts out quiet, her emerald eyes light up before long, and her friendly laugh turns into an exuberant cackle. This is especially true once you get her going about life in the Sunshine State. Tourists, she says, are easy to spot "because they’re always sunburned"- a detail she first noticed while fulfilling a tour of duty working in Mickey Mouse’s playground. "I dressed as seven different characters". Kara also danced in the Disney World parades, a not unexpected distinction on a résumé that includes years of dancing and gymnastics and a stint coaching a competitive dance team. "It was a jazz-funk, hip-hop kind of thing," she says. "That’s what I do best."