Travelers' Intercom
Hertz rental price discrepancy
For a trip to Mexico City with my wife, Arlene, Feb. 17-25, 2019, I reserved a car online with Hertz (www.hertz.com) in January. I was given a total cost of $192, which would equal MXN3,694.
An assessment of Costsaver’s ‘Cossack Explorer’
When I booked the Costsaver trip “Cossack Explorer,” April 14-27, 2018, it seemed it would satisfy my desire to visit cities like Veliky Novgorod, Smolensk and Minsk.
Biggest bang for the buck in Europe
We love to travel frequently and for several months at a time, so we spend a lot of effort on stretching our money. We’d like to share how we visited eight Central and Eastern European capitals for 50 days at a cost of $6,900 total for the two of us in fall 2016.
Smartphone strategies
When traveling internationally with your smartphone, there are ways to avoid the extremely high roaming and international calling and texting rates.
Favorite B&B in Rome
During my frequent travels over the past 20 years to and through Rome, Italy, most recently in April 2019, I’ve stayed in a small B&B named Residenza Risorgimento (Piazza Risorgimento 59, Rome; phone +39 06 686 4375, residenzarisorgimento.it/en).
Protecting a bank account from theft
I travel alone, so I always carry two ATM cards when traveling, a Charles Schwab Visa debit card and a Fidelity Cash Management Visa debit card, in case one is pickpocketed. I always notify Schwab and Fidelity about my travel plans so the cards won’t be blocked when I try to use them overseas.
Mobile Passport Control app
As my tour group was being driven to the airport in Turkey (June ’19, pg. 20) for our various flights to the US, one member asked, “Do you all have the Mobile Passport Control app?” We all shook our heads ‘no.’ “You have to download it,” he continued.
Balkans with ZagrebTours
My husband, Richard, and I wanted to see several countries in Eastern Europe on a private tour by car. (Negotiating trains and long-distance buses proved an impossibility, and a cruise would hit only coastal towns.)
SMOM: small ‘country,’ long name
During my trip to Rome in September 2017, I visited the Sovereign Military Order of Malta (SMOM).
High praise for Kenya guide
On a 17-day private tour from mid-August into September 2018, my wife and I had a guide in Kenya who was certainly the best guide I’ve had in my 10 or so trips to Africa over the past three decades.
Ethnobotanical Explorations - Shaman in Belize
On a cruise with Oceania Cruises (855/327-9575, www.oceaniacruises.com) in December 2018, I took a shore trip in Belize. On the tour, which had a title something like “Jungle Walk With a Shaman,” we met Aurora Garcia-Saqui, who has a store selling herbal medicines.
Adventure in the North Caucasus
In the mid-’90s, Russian friends invited me to Moscow to see some of their old slides from travels in southwestern Russia. On the wall of their living room, they showed slides of parts of the North Caucasus, specifically, Chechnya and Dagestan.
AROHA New Zealand Tours
My traveling companion, Judy, and I visited New Zealand in January 2019 on a tour with Tauck (Wilton, CT; 800/788-7885, www.tauck.com), which had a wonderful itinerary, covering primarily the Queenstown and Wellington areas. It was a great experience.
Avoiding a dead car battery while away
When I bought my Toyota Prius in 2007, the salesman showed me that by pulling a particular fuse, I would never have to worry about coming home to a dead battery after a trip. Even after a trip as long as three months, I just pop the fuse back in place (it takes two seconds) and the car starts up like normal.
Tahiti Airport Motel
At the end of a South Pacific cruise with Ponant, my wife and I stayed the day at the Tahiti Airport Motel (Faa’a, Tahiti; phone +689 40 50 40 00, tahitiairportmotel.net) on March 19, 2019.