Culture

Like most travelers around the world, I've shifted into "armchair travel" mode for the time being. While stuck at home, I'm reflecting on my favorite memories of experiencing Europe's living traditions.

While some of Europe's customs survive only as clichés or tacky stage shows for tourists, others are worth going out of your way to take part in. One of the most well-known European traditions -- and something that I absolutely love doing -- is gliding through Venice in a gondola.

6-day, 5-night, “easy” culinary and cultural tour in Québec, CANADA, July 19-24, 2020. Group limit, 12. Highlights: In Montréal, Museum of Jewish Montréal, Le Plateau-Mont-Royal, Mile End neighborhoods, Montreal Holocaust Museum, 18th-century Shearith Israel synagogue, shared meze-style dinner in Saint-Henri, tour Habitat 67 residential complex, bagel-making workshop at Fletcher’s Espace Culinaire. From $2,280 ppdo. Single supp., $425. Atlas Obscura (Brooklyn, NY; 646/961-4857, www.atlasobscura.com/trips).

Travelers flying to Jamaica can eschew the traditional paper Immigration/Customs forms by filling the forms out in advance online. It is the first Caribbean island nation to offer an online Customs form.

To fill out the digital form, visit https://c5online.pica.gov.jm/apply. Flight information and the address of your accommodation in Jamaica are required.

Mary Light of Ann Arbor, Michigan, has an information request. She wrote, “As a natural- and herbal-medicine practitioner and teacher, I have found that one of the most interesting and direct ways to connect with locals and their communities internationally is through their ethnobotanical culture. This could involve medicinal-plant trails, herbal botanical gardens and organic farms as well as encounters with various 'medicine men and women.'

16 days, 15 nights in southeast INDIA, Nov. 19-Dec. 4, 2018 & Jan. 14-29, 2019. Highlights: Fly from Calcutta to Visakhapatnam/drive to Jeypore for visits with remote tribal groups/Koraput Tribal Museum/Bastar Palace/Kondagaon village artisans/in Bhubaneswar, Museum of Tribal Arts & Artifacts/Konark Dance Festival (Dec.) or Adivasi Mela festival (Jan.)/in Puri, Jagannath Temple. Nov., $4,180 ppdo; single supp., $1,220.