Columns

Dear Globetrotter:
Welcome to the 357th issue of your monthly overseas travel magazine.

Most seasoned travelers at one time or another have arrived at a hotel with a reservation in hand only to be informed that the type of room they thought they had reserved was not available. In this edition of “Under the Microscope,” I will examine strategies for finding acceptable solutions for such situations and also measures for trying to prevent such occurrences in future travels.

Questions

In the situation described above, several things must be determined.

Moreen and I consider ourselves fortunate to have visited the Middle East often. Friends say perhaps we have tempted fate, though we disagree. We don’t speak Arabic, Turkish or other languages in this Muslim and Arab world, but we do respect carefully its many cultures. We believe personal travel articles, similar to those presented in ITN, permit readers to see behind national media reports. This preface leads us into this month’s travel for the adventuresome.

by Philip Wagenaar

(First of two parts)

Olpe, Germany, May 9, 2005. . .

With disbelief, I stared at the notice on the wall next to the ATM in the Volksbank’s small foyer.

by Janet Denninger

As the head chef at the famous Asian restaurant, Jade Garden, aboard the 5-star cruise ship Crystal Symphony, John Poh has reached the pinnacle of cruise cuisine. He owes his success to talent, hard work, a passion for food, and experience in over 100 kitchens around the world. I spoke to Mr. Poh while on a voyage from Lisbon to Rome in the summer of 2005.

by Mary Beltran, Assistant Editor, ITN

Paying for purchases overseas has gotten complicated.

Dear Globetrotter:
Welcome to the 356th issue of your monthly overseas travel magazine.

by Wayne Wirtanen

(First of three parts)

Partway through my visit to Morocco in September ’04, I realized that there were similarities there to what one might find on a trip in California.

Fifteen hundred years ago, Kairouan was only a desert crossroads, a caravan stop in the sands of what is now Tunisia in North Africa. But this quickly changed. In fewer than 100 years following the death of Muhammad in A.D. 632, caravans from Saudi Arabia had spread his word of Islam from India to the Atlantic Ocean.