Tours in Review

My wife, Darlene, and I traveled to 12 countries, Nov. 20-Dec. 18, 2007, and saw no other foreign travelers the whole time except in Dubai.

Thanks to a letter in ITN (Nov. ’04, pg. 82) singing the praises of one Ibrahim Morgan (phone [002] 012 347 6343 or e-mail morgan_eg@yahoo.com or visit www.highrock.com/Ibrahim), my husband, Paul, and I contacted him by e-mail and asked him to arrange a 21-day trip to Egypt for us for March 2-22, 2008.

Mr. Morgan, who earned a Master’s Degree in Egyptology from the University of Alexandria, developed a complete itinerary for our visit.

In contrast to the rather organized (for a third-world country) north, with its hotels, Christian churches and towns, southern Ethiopia is rural and tribal and has few amenities for Westerners. In the south, the majority of the people are Muslims or animists. Distinctly different from the north, it is a very African place.

When my granddaughter Melody, just 16, begged us to take her to England, I wanted her to experience the England I loved most. My husband, John, and I and our son Huntley traveled with Melody from June 29 to July 14, 2008.

A friend, Joan, and I, both seniors, took the 17-day “New Zealand Encounter” in February ’08, going from the South Island to the North Island, with visits to the Bay of Islands, Auckland, Rotorua, Christchurch, Milford Sound and Mt. Cook. We traveled with AAT Kings Tours (Anaheim, CA; 866/240-1659, www.aatkings.com). The cost was $3,975, and round-trip air from San Francisco added $1,848.

It was a very well run coach tour (with an interesting and fair seat rotation), especially because of our unbelievably excellent tour guide, Ruben.

We’d wandered much of the world since retirement but never within Central Asia. Samarkand beckoned.

Regarding tours to Turkey, a reader (Feb. ’07, pg. 67) recommended Mehmet Ozbalci of TurFantastik (Millet cad. Inan Is Hani No: 5/ 610, Aksaray, Istanbul, Turkey; phone [90] 212 589 3325).

We engaged Mehmet in a 14-day private tour for 10 people in an air-conditioned Mercedes van, April 1-15, 2008. The price was $1,800 per person, not including airfare.

The tour was well organized and informative and set at an enjoyable pace. The accommodations were excellent as was the food.

I took the one-day “Romania Myths & Magic” tour of Bucharest with Original World (Mill Valley, CA; 888/367-6147, www.originalworld.com), June 10-21, 2008.