An invitation to a friend's wedding outside Madrid at the end of May 2018 morphed into a month long trip to Spain, including visits with two other Spanish friends and some fantastic travel discoveries.

Suitcases packed, tickets in hand and our Spanish-language courses refreshed, off we went to see tres amigos (three friends).

Getting there

Our "itinerary" — we prefer serendipitous travel to organized tours — would take us to places we...

My wife, Ruth, and I and six friends gathered in Budapest for a 24-day excursion through Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic (Czechia), Sept. 29-Oct. 21, 2017.

After some collaboration among the eight of us, we had chosen JayWay Travel (New Rochelle, NY; 800/344-5785, jaywaytravel.com) to help organize our trip.

My wife and I paid $4,200 for our portion of the travel package arranged by JayWay, which included lodging, most meals, transportation between locations, a...

I had just returned home from a long and adventure-filled trip to Ethiopia and Southern Africa in November 2017 when I received a phone call from a travel agent friend asking if I would be interested in a trip to Morocco. I had traveled to more than a dozen countries in sub-Saharan Africa over the previous three years, and, as luck would have it, I had vowed that my next African trip would be to Morocco, so I decided to keep the promise I had made to myself, even if it was a little...