November 2009

by James Ure, Salt Lake City, UT

“For your birthday,” said my companion, Judy Martin, “I want to buy you dinner — in Paris on New Year’s Eve.” This was her gift to me in August ’08. Our holiday week in the City of Light began on Dec. 29.

Nancy Tan of Fresno, Cailfornia, wrote, “What is the best way to upgrade your cabin class on a flight? Buy the ticket and then use miles? Pay for the upgrade? Just buy an economy-plus or business-class ticket to start with? Can an upgrade be made before we get to the airport?”

by Mary Beltran, ITN

I stood on deck, feeling the cool breeze of our passage and realized, again, that river cruising is one of my favorite ways to travel.

My husband and I read with great interest the article on the Dordogne region of France (Sept. ’09, pg. 6). During October ’08 we spent a week there as part of a 3-week trip to France and it was, in many ways, the most special part of our trip. The scenery itself was just beautiful, and it seemed as if every one of the rolling hills was topped with a castle.

For information about the region, we used “Rick Steves’ France,” but I think part of the charm of Dordogne was just wandering. Also, as the author of the ITN article mentioned, the cuisine in that area is superb.

On Easter Island, Hotel Taura’a (Atamu Tekena s/n, Hanga Roa, Easter Island, Chile; phone [56] [32] 210 0463, fax [32] 255 1310, www.tauraahotel.cl) has 10 delightful rooms and serves delicious breakfasts. The surroundings are beautiful.

Our lovely, spotless room cost my husband, Joe, and me approximately $115 per night. (The costs I give here are based on the November ’08 rate of 620 pesos per US dollar.)

On a custom tour our family took to Panama in June-July ’09 (Oct. ’09, pg. 32), we stayed on SAN CRISTOBAL ISLAND at the Dolphin Bay Hideaway (phone +011 [507] 6417 7351 or [507] 6772 9917, www.dolphinbayhideaway.com), a small, private B&B in Bocas del Toro.

Two friends and I took a 10-day trip to Venezuela in December ’08. While our itinerary, which included visits to Caracas, Mérida and Canaima National Park, didn’t exhaust what Venezuela has to offer, we enjoyed our visit and some fine food and unique sights, especially at Canaima.

We encountered no danger and confronted absolutely no hostility, despite the rhetorical food fight between presidents Bush and Chavez.

In defense of the company Spirit of India, I must respond to the reader’s letter titled “Temporarily Left in the Desert” (Sept. ’09, pg. 28), about an experience on a tour in Mongolia.

My husband, Rodney, and I took the “Imperial Russian Waterways” tour with Vantage Deluxe World Travel, Aug. 5-26, 2008, which included a 3-night Kiev pretrip and a 3-night Stockholm post-trip extension for a total of 22 days.

This was not only our first riverboat trip, it was our first experience in being with a group larger than 20 people. We approached it as an experiment, to see whether our avoidance of large groups was really justified.