July 2004

In Lincoln, 140 miles north of London, a year-long restoration is underway of one of the most important examples of medieval stained glass in Europe.

What do YOU collect on trips overseas? What got you started? Have you derived any special benefits or had any interesting experiences due to your searches? Do you have any tips for others on a similar quest?

Those were the questions we put to you a few months ago, and below are some of the replies. We’ll have more in next month’s issue. One interesting development — we expected that most travelers would be going after a small number of collectibles, but, except for one theme, the items named are surprisingly diverse.

by Michael McCarthy

In January ’04 we spent 15 nights at the beautiful Curaçao Marriott Beach Resort & Emerald Casino (phone [599-9] 736-8800, fax [599-9] 462-7502). This 5-star resort is first class. We paid $229 for a nice double with a beautiful view of the blue and green waters of the Caribbean.

The open-air lobby, typical of hotels in this area, was so pleasant to walk through anytime of the day or night.

We had heard in the U.S. about the severe heat wave and drought that was affecting all of Europe during the summer of ’03, causing rivers to be dangerously low, so we wondered how Uniworld (Encino, CA; phone 800/257-2264), with whom we were scheduled to travel down Italy’s Po River, would handle this problem. Looking back, I think they succeeded to the best of their ability.

A reader mailed ITN a copy of her letter to Great American Travel, as follows.

This letter is to inform ITN readers of the utmost necessity of taking out travel insurance before any trip, especially with regard to interruption of a tour and, of course, reimbursement of medical expenses.

My husband, Robert, always used to fight me before our trips about the cost of this insurance, but I always won out, and it certainly paid off during one miserable episode in our travels.

Because my husband and I travel extensively, we are paying out exorbitant amounts of money on comprehensive travel insurance when we only require to be covered for certain risks.

My husband, Eugene, and I were scheduled to leave on April 12, ’04, on a month-long trip to Eastern Europe, beginning in Prague.

My wife and I went on a “Discover Thailand” tour with Overseas Adventure Travel (OAT), Sept. 9-Oct. 2, ’03. Our tour was 16 days long, to which we added a pre-trip of three days in Cambodia, visiting Angkor Wat. The basic cost was $1,690 per person, including airfare via Minneapolis and Tokyo. The pre-trip option cost $690 each — expensive but worth it! Taxes added a further $62 to each fare.