Columns

by Deanna Palić

As a delegate to the Latin America Travel Mart in September ’05, I was invited by PeruRail to sample their luxury train, the Hiram Bingham, which links Cusco and Machu Picchu.

PeruRail is widely recognized as having not only one of the highest rail routes on Earth but the world’s most scenic railway service. Their service links most of the tourist highlights of the Peruvian Andes and is undoubtedly the most spectacular way to discover the ancient land of the...

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by Ed Kinney

Moreen and I have been fortunate to have twice visited Petra, Jordan. To us, it is one of the crown jewels of the Middle East, along with Syria’s Palmyra and Lebanon’s Baalbek. (Egypt’s treasures are in Africa.)

The first time we visited the rose-red city of Petra was in 1982. Then, the Middle East was inflamed with Israel and Syria fighting in Lebanon and Syrian ruler Hafez al-Assad subduing the Muslim Brotherhood in Hama, Syria. In our naivete, we were traveling...

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(Third of three parts, jump to part 1, part 2, part 3)

Great white sharks!

From the safety of a small “shark watching” boat, our small group of mildly adventuresome travelers was watching a group of “young and reckless” travelers on a nearby “shark diving” excursion boat in Walker Bay, South Africa, southeast of Cape Town, in March ’05.

If you have seen documentaries of the great whites, some of the filming was likely done here at one of the world’s premier whale and...

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by Randy Keck (Third of three parts, jump to part 1, part 2, part 3)

The final portion of my journey to China in October-November 2005 commenced upon disembarking in Chongqing after completing our 5-day/4-night Yangtze River Three Gorges cruise.

Our local guide, Daniel, advised we were now in the land of spicy, fiery cooking, short-tempered locals and China’s hottest summers as well as a city in which it is generally acknowledged that women are formally in charge of the...

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Dear Globetrotter:

Welcome to the 361st issue of your monthly overseas travel magazine. This is our 30th anniversary issue!

The following was sent to us by one of your fellow ITN readers, Robert E. Pine of Boulder, Colorado: “As a longtime subscriber to International Travel News, I thought you might be interested to know that my wife, Dorothy, and I have recently become the most widely traveled couple in the world. In October ’05 we visited Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan and...

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by Marisue Pickering, Orono, ME

As our well-used guidebook to Britain states, “Berkshire has one major tourist attraction: Windsor and its famous castle.” Although my husband and I agree with our travel guide about the premier status of this magnificent castle overlooking the Thames, we delight in discovering minor attractions of the area.

We have enjoyed the byways of Windsor and greater Berkshire in the months of January, March, June, July and November. Our first visit was...

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Q

STEVE, except for a JetBlue flight that leaves at midnight, there are no nonstop flights from Denver to New York’s JFK Airport, and as a traveler who is sick and very tired of flying to Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Dulles, Boston or Detroit to get to JFK (to connect with an international flight), I would really like to know why. — Ellen Jacobson, Centennial, CO

A

DEAR ELLEN, for years now, airlines have not been in the business of providing service, so their decisions on where to fly...

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Heavy rains poured down upon most of the tropics this past year; we saw numerous hurricanes in the Caribbean while Asia suffered heavy monsoons and cyclones. There has been much human suffering as a result.

During the rainy season, and for many weeks after, standing water serves as the perfect environment for mosquito larvae. As you would expect, this season there has been an explosion in the mosquito population. With increasing numbers of mosquitoes, we typically see increases in...

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