Four-day, three-night tour of Rapa Nui (Easter Island), CHILE. Highlights: Orongo ceremonial village/Ana Kai Tangata Cave/west coast of island with its petroglyphs, caves and moais/Matato’a music-and-dance show/15 standing moais of Ahu Tongariki/artisans’ market. With air from Santiago, Chile, $4,498 (Hotel Iorana) or $4,179 (Hotel O’tai).
Chilean Special Journeys (Santiago, Chile; phone, in US, 888/345-6077).
10 days, 8 nights. Departures Dec. 1, 2014-Jan. 10, 2015. Highlights: In Kuala Lumpur, visit Batu Caves, prehistoric limestone hill with Hindu shrine/snorkeling at Turtle Island/batik demonstration at Jadi Batek Gallery/Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre, Borneo Nature Lodge/bird-watching at Kelananap Ox-Bow Lake. Land, from $2,818. Single supp., $1,350.
Sayang Holidays (San Francisco, CA; 888/472-9264).
What is it about certain cities or countries that makes them so magical that they seem to call you to return? After my first trip to Japan in March 2010, I couldn’t shake the dreamlike visions from my mind.
I found an ad in ITN for “Japan on the Colorful Road” with Essential Travel & Tours (Rancho Palos Verdes, CA; 310/544-9596). After talking to them, I knew this was the trip I needed to take to see if Japan was as wonderful as the vision I had in my mind.
Tens of thousands of new cases of chikungunya fever were reported in the Dominican Republic and Haiti in late June and early July.
The virus, which causes fever, joint pain and skin rash, is spread by mosquitoes. Symptoms usually last for a few days but sometimes can persist for weeks. Though the disease is rarely fatal, 21 deaths in the Caribbean have been attributed to it.
January’s photo shows The Remarkable Rocks, found in Flinders Chase National Park on Kangaroo Island off South Australia. Sixty-six of the 68 entries sent in were correct.
The winner of the drawing was FRED KOEHLER of Orange, California.
Our thanks go out to Robert Golden of San Francisco, California, for the photo.
THIS OLD (really, really old) HOUSE — July’s picture shows the 5,000-year-old remains of Skara Brae, a Neolithic village near Kirkwall on Pomona Island, one of the Orkney Islands, Scotland.
. . . but you wouldn’t want to live there.
May’s photo depicted the chapel in the penal colony on Devil’s Island, one of the three islands of the Îles du Salut (Safety Islands) in the Atlantic off the north coast of French Guiana.
Faster than a speeding tortoise…. It seems amazing that letters left at the location pictured in the June issue — “Post Office Bay” on Isla Floreana, Galápagos Islands, Ecuador — ever get delivered, but many of the 18 readers who sent in correct answers can testify that they do.
Many of you correctly identified the site pictured in the April issue: the thatch-roofed windmills on Mykonos Island, Greece, standing out against a blue sky and overlooking the azure Mediterranean. We had 70 correct answers, and the winners of the drawing were KYRA and MARK THIBODEAU of Henderson, Nevada.
Neither rain nor snow nor gloom of night can keep the mail carrier from completing his appointed rounds. . . but you couldn’t blame him for being a bit confused when he finally reaches THESE mailboxes! The unique postal receptacles are on Kangaroo Island, Australia.