I had been to Africa a number of times, but I had never been to Ethiopia. The only African country not to be colonized, it has its own language, writing system, music, dancing style, dress, food and way of telling time. All of that fascinated me.

Heading out

My 22-day trip from March to April 2018 began with seven days in the northern part of the country, which is what I will cover in this article. With my guide, Tefera Alemu of Tefera Tours (Addis Ababa; tefera.tours...

I had booked a group tour that would take my sister Gretchen and me to northern Greece, Macedonia and Kosovo in September-October 2017, but I also wanted to add on some days in Albania, so I arranged a private tour ($1,650 per person for two) with Barbara Sansone of Original World (San Rafael, CA; 888/367-6147, originalworld.com).

Then, two months before our scheduled departure, I was notified that the group tour was canceled because not enough people had signed up. I...

After a trip to wild Papua New Guinea years ago, I was enticed by the knowledge that the western half of the island of New Guinea is part of Indonesia. (PNG, on the eastern half, is an independent nation.) The opportunity to visit Indonesia presented itself when two friends I'd met on my Five 'Stans adventure invited me to join them there. After checking the exciting pre- and post-trip itineraries, I was in!

Hong Kong

Since I would be so close to Hong Kong and...