Hotels and Lodging

On a trip to Japan, my daughter Stacy and I stayed in a virtual ghost town when we lodged at Ryokan Sakaya - Nozawa Onsen (9329 Toyosato, Nozawa onsen, Nagano 389-2502, Japan; ryokan-sakaya.com), April 17-19, 2019. We arrived at the end of the ski season and all of the ski hotels in the resort were practically empty. The week before, the hotels were full!

We had found the ryokan online and called ahead. We asked for a traditional room with tatami mats on the floor as opposed to Western-style beds. Our room cost $253 per night.

While visiting Chile’s Lake District in November 2019, my wife, Arnette, and I stayed at a nice hotel beside a beautiful lake within a mile of the center of the delightful town of Pucón, which is also on the lake.

Hotel Antumalal (Camino Pucón a Villarrica Km.2, Pucón, Novena Region de La Araucanía; phone +56 45 2 441011, www.antumalal.com) has a nice spa. The food was good and the service, very professional.

Our rate for a lake view was about $400 a night, including the use of an amazing indoor pool.

On a wonderful group tour that my wife, Sandy, and I took through the South Caucasus mountains with MIR Corp. (Seattle, WA; 800/424-7289, www.mircorp.com), Sept. 16-30, 2019, the hotels were superior.

“Treasures of the South Caucasus” ($7,795 each, double occupancy) was led by a bilingual Russian woman, and we visited three countries — Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia — getting to see people and sights that many don’t get to see.

My mother and I booked a trip to Bangkok, Thailand, that included a 5-day hotel stay, after which we intended to take a couple of weeks to fly around visiting “new” countries.

Orangutans are found in the wild in only two places in the world: Borneo and Sumatra. My mother had been to Borneo but wanted to add Sumatran orangutans to her list, so we decided to visit.