It is the spring season, a time of renewal and growth… . and time for ITN to sprout new buds and blossoms.
In order to do this, International Travel News must increase its subscriber base. And to accomplish that, we are formally requesting the participation of all current subscribers.
ITN is, for many of you, your most direct communication conduit to the exciting world of international travel. This magazine tells it like it is, without the frills.
Bath was awash in Jane Austen character look-alikes. Hundreds of Mr. Darcys and Mrs. Bennets filled the sidewalks of this patrician small city in homage to her for having lived and written there for five years. It was Bath’s annual Jane Austen Festival (in 2014 taking place Sept. 12-21) and I, alas, not a Jane Austen fan, had unwittingly blundered into its midst for a 3-day stay.
The Louvre is Europe’s oldest, biggest, greatest and second-most-crowded museum (after the Vatican). It is home to Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo, Michelangelo statues, and paintings by the greatest artists from the Renaissance to the Romantics. Lately, it is also home to groups of pickpockets. It got so bad that in April 2013 the museum staff walked out in protest. The Louvre had to close for a day, and the management finally beefed up police patrols.
What would you do if you got sick abroad or if your previously stable medical condition worsened abroad?
While much has been printed in ITN about travel health insurance, little has been written about the measures you should take proactively to get the best medical care when abroad. Below, I will indicate these measures.
Parts of the following information have been paraphrased from http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel and other CDC sites. I purposely have omitted information about travel insurance.
PREVENTION
Medicare is the federal health insurance program for those 65 years of age or older who qualify and for certain other people with disabilities. Medicare does not take care of all medical costs, however, so many seniors also purchase supplemental policies to cover expenses not fully covered by Medicare. These policies, provided by private insurers, make up a program commonly known as Medigap, because they cover the medical bills that fall through the “gap,” the expenses that Medicare will not pay.
Dear Globetrotter:
Welcome to the 459th issue of your monthly foreign-travel magazine.
A quick Internet check told me that there were once two to three thousand castles in Scotland. Many still exist as family homes, castle hotels or tourist attractions. Some remain picturesque ruins. Others have simply vanished with hardly a trace, their stones incorporated long ago into other buildings.
While Germany sits in the driver’s seat of Europe’s economy, it doesn’t take a cultural backseat either. Here are a few of the latest developments.
• Berlin is trying to finish construction of its new, 5-billion-euro (nearly 7-billion-dollar) airport, Willy Brandt Berlin-Brandenburg International, but the project has been perennially delayed by a faulty fire-safety system, glitches in the baggage-sorting equipment and other technical problems. A partial opening in 2014 is possible but not likely.
In Thailand, a popular destination for Asians and Europeans is Hua Hin, a beach resort town about 125 miles south of Bangkok in an area favored by the Thai royal family. It is where King Rama VII (1893-1941) built a beautiful summer palace, now a tourist attraction, and it is where the current king made his residence, in another palace nearby, until his poor health required that he move to a hospital in Bangkok.
