I read the subscriber’s article about a “180-day ’round-the-world cruise” (Aug. ’17, pg. 46). My husband, Don, and I visited Vietnam as part of a small-group land tour in February 2006, starting in Hanoi and beautiful Ha Long Bay, and we had a more positive impression of the country.
This month’s winner is MICHAEL BRANDT of El Dorado Hills, California:
It was a beautiful, sunny day in Bahamian waters, and there was a hypnotic spell about being on the open sea. I decided to walk on the cruise ship’s track, located on Deck 11. The track was one-tenth of a mile around, so 10 loops made a mile. It was a nicely laid-out track, freshly painted blue and located on the upper deck, overlooking the pool.
Editor’s note: In last month’s issue, ITN printed letters from several subscribers who had strong reactions to the article about “ugly tourists” by Contributing Editor Rick Steves in his June 2017 column. Rick was invited to provide a response to be printed in conjunction with those letters, but he was not able to do so by press time. Rick has returned from his latest trip, and his response appears below.
I want to thank ITN readers for the thoughtful responses to my article “The Ugly Tourist (And How Not to Be One).”
My husband, Jim, and I found an ad in “The Mart” section of ITN’s December 2016 issue describing a combination trip of a week on a yacht sailing Croatia’s Dalmatian Islands for a maximum of 20 people plus a week’s bus tour of Montenegro for 10 people, all arranged by Drifter Sister (Catch the Wind Tours, Boulder City, NV; 702/294-4365, www.driftersister.com).
We’re at an age where we’re trying to discover destinations, mostly in Europe, that we haven’t yet visited. This trip furthered our quest and was a wonderful new experience for us.
Italy’s highest court of appeal upheld a 16-year jail sentence for the captain of the cruise ship Costa Concordia on May 12. The captain, Francesco Schettino, navigated the ship into a submerged rock off of the Italian island of Giglio in January 2012 reportedly while trying to impress a woman in the wheelhouse. The vessel capsized and 32 people were killed. Schettino was convicted of both manslaughter and abandoning ship in 2015.
