Hotels and Lodging

(Second of two parts)

My wife and I spent two weeks in Portugal, mainly focusing on Lisbon and Porto, in September 2015. In each city, we rented an apartment for six nights. I would highly recommend these apartments, both of which were booked through Homeaway.com (www.homeaway.com).

• In LISBON, we booked Homeaway Rental No. 841261, for which we paid €100 (near $110) per night plus a €40 cleaning fee. A 30% deposit was made via PayPal at the time of booking, with the remainder paid in cash upon arrival.

The Booking Now app, by Booking.com, facilitates reserving hotel rooms around the world within 48 hours of check-in time. 

When searching for a room, a user can specify hotel room preferences, including price range, Wi-Fi availability and having meals included in the price. The app can also use GPS to find the hotels meeting the user’s preferences nearest to his location and then give directions to the chosen hotel.

We hopped on the donkey cart at a dusty corner in the Bahariya Oasis, about half a block from our hotel. The driver of the cart spoke no English and we spoke no Arabic. The lead donkey walked with a slight limp as we started down the main road. 

Dear Globetrotter:

Welcome to the 477th issue of your monthly foreign travel magazine.

In ITN, we print letters and articles provided by our subscribers. 

Dear Globetrotter:

Welcome to the 477th issue of your monthly foreign travel magazine.

In ITN, we print letters and articles provided by our subscribers. 

My daughter, Cate, and her daughter, Frances, and I arrived at Mexico City (aka México, D.F.) in the evening and chose to stay right in Benito Juarez International Airport’s Terminal 1 at the Courtyard Mexico City Airport — Marriott (phone +52 55 4631 4000).

If you happen to arrive in Terminal 2, which is a 10-minute drive from Terminal 1, you’ll find that many hotels have offices in the main area and will swiftly shuttle you in their vans.