September 2016

Nearly 20 years ago, I was on a tour in Uzbekistan when one of our group had to be evacuated to Helsinki, Finland, for surgery. Fortunately, she had evacuation insurance. Since that event, I have had emergency-medical-evacuation insurance, as my family and I travel to out-of-the-way places such as Mongolia, Tunisia, Nepal and North Korea.

Most travelers to Curaçao are attracted by its white-sand beaches, interesting history and rich cultural tapestry. When my wife, Fyllis, and I visited in January 2016, we also discovered a very different gem of a museum that, alone, would make a trip to this Southern Caribbean island worthwhile.

The Sonesta Kura Hulanda Village & Spa (Langestraat 8, [Otrobanda], Willemstad, Curaçao, Netherlands Antilles; phone +599 9 434 7700, www.kurahulanda.com/en) is an inviting and intriguing virtual neighborhood nestled in the capital city of Willemstad.

My husband, David, and I had an excellent experience on our March 2016 trip in Jordan using Go2Jordan.INFO (www.your-guide-to-aqaba-jordan.com).

Our first contact with the company was with Eszter Papai (eszter@your-guide-to-aqaba-jordan.com). She thanked us for our inquiry and passed along some information about Jordan, including a series of travel tips for the area. She also told us they had an English-speaking guide, Zsuzsanna (Suzan) Gabor.

I wanted to visit Nicaragua but found it difficult to find any tours that went there. I finally discovered an 8-day tour, “Wonders of Nicaragua,” through the travel department of the American Automobile Association, or AAA (travel.aaa.com). It was run by Alexander+Roberts (Keene, NH; 800/221-2216, www.alexanderroberts.com).

Whenever I’ve wanted to go to an out-of-the-way place, I’ve relied on Adventures Abroad (2148-20800 Westminster Hwy., Richmond, B.C., V6V 2W3, Canada; 800/665-3998, www.adventures-abroad.com) to take me there.

A trip I took with them May 14-June 6, 2015, “Indian Ocean Islands,” showed me Seychelles, Mauritius, Reunion, Madagascar, Mayotte and Comoros. For transport, the company hired local boats, including the sailboat we used to go around Seychelles.

From the Editor of ITN — Peter Schuetz of Shelby, North Carolina, wrote to ITN about a tour of western Canada and the Rocky Mountains, originally scheduled for June 27-July 5, 2015, that he took with his fiancée and a group of seniors.

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Fellow pilot Zaman Khan said, “India… all good memories and smells, but India is not for sissies.” 

A suicide bomber in the city of Medina, Saudi Arabia, killed four police officers and injured five others on July 5. The bomber had been stopped by security when trying to enter the Prophet’s Mosque, the burial site of the Prophet Muhammad and one of the holiest sites in Islam. 

On that same day, a suicide bomber targeted a Shia mosque in Qatif, with no other casualties, and in the capital, Jeddah, a suicide bomber detonated his bomb near the US Consulate, causing minor injuries to two security officers.

On July 17, near Würzburg, Germany, a 17-year-old Afghani asylum-seeker attacked passengers on a train with a knife and axe, wounding four tourists from Hong Kong, three seriously. The attacker was later killed by police when he attempted to flee.

On July 22, a German-Iranian teenager opened fire at a shopping mall in Munich, killing nine people and injuring 35 before killing himself. According to evidence found in his home, the gunman had been obsessed with mass shootings. There was no evidence that he had been inspired by or had associated with any terrorist group.