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My husband and I are experienced travelers (125 countries) and know there are very few travel bargains any more. When we read an ad in ITN for a 15-day/13-night tour of Morocco for $2,085 each including air from New York, we thought the price was too good to be true.
Croatia is a wonderful destination, with six UNESCO World Heritage Sites, great food and wine and, during our June ’06 trip, perfect weather.
On my first trip to Europe in 1958, my mother and I sailed on the Italian liner MN Augustus from New York to Naples, with a one-day stop in Lisbon. The ship’s route took us through the Azores, approximately 1,000 miles off the coast of Portugal. We sailed through them around 8:30 in the morning, and I can still remember how beautiful and sparkling they looked in the bright morning sunlight, just like jewels in the water. I promised myself that one day I would return to explore those peaceful islands.
by Susan Fogwell, Princeton, NJ
Where have you, in the last few years, had a great massage overseas (outside of North America and the Caribbean)? In a first-class hotel? A spa? An airport lounge? Tell us where it was (include contact info, if possible), when you were there and approximately how much it cost (discuss the gratuity too). What made it great? Have any tips for others interested in a relaxing or invigorating massage?
“There’s one!” Our local guide ecstatically pointed out a sight guaranteed to generate a sense of awe in the most jaded traveler. Standing erect on a rock protruding from the bay near our landing site on Bartolomé Island in the Galápagos was an honest-to-goodness penguin, saluting our arrival. We were sweating in the sea-level equatorial heat while the polar seabird looked calm, cool and definitely out of place.
In no specific order, following are the places I have visited that I consider to be the greatest of the natural wonders of our world. (The Grand Canyon in Arizona would be on this list, but I’m concentrating on sights covered by ITN, those outside of North America and the Caribbean.)
Several entries from my list of Lesser Known Natural Wonders, listed at the bottom, would be in this category if they were more widely known. I have been to 183 of the 194 countries on the ITN Official List of Nations.
During a visit to our favorite haunts in France in September ’04, I awoke at 4 a.m in our suburban Paris hotel room with an emergency at hand. Pat, my wife of over 40 years, was suffering a crippling pain in her abdomen that called for immediate action.
The pre-dawn lobby of the Saphir Hotel (aire de Bercheres, on N104, Pontault-Combault) was deserted except for the night man. I told him my wife needed medical attention quickly and asked if a doctor was on call. He made two short calls and said, “They will be here in a few minutes.”
“Who?”
The first segment of our 3-month self-drive Southern African odyssey a few years ago took us from Johannesburg to Botswana through the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park in our rented 4X4 Toyota camping-equipped truck. The best description for the four weeks spent driving across the Kalahari Desert and through the remote northern Kalahari would be “outsized.” The terrain, the animals, the people — all well beyond expectations.
I enjoyed the article “Vietnam — Personalizing the Experience” in the June ’06 issue, as I had made a similar trip in March 2001. Mr. Emmet’s one criticism seemed to be that the guides, in regard to their English abilities, “could not handle more than simple declarative sentences” and he hoped this would improve as tourism built in Vietnam.
On our trip to Vietnam, we had five wonderful guides, all of whom had excellent English skills and were also personable and informative.