My wife, Paula, and I visited Japan for the first time in October ’06. Wanting to travel independently (as usual) but being a bit intimidated by the language barrier, we compromised by using a series of four all-day guided tours to cover much of our sightseeing.
My two girlfriends and I took a 2-week independent trip to Italy, June 7-21, 2006. We always plan our trips ourselves (no packages), customizing them for what we want to see and leaving plenty of free time in between the sightseeing for cafés, hiking, etc.
This trip included Venice (plus Murano, Burano and Torcello islands), our hiking the entire Cinque Terre trail, Florence (with a stop to tour Pisa en route) and Rome.
by Roxana von Kraus, Boston, MA
“American? Welcome. Welcome to Egypt!”
Bill Altaffer of Mammoth Lakes, California, said he once saw a paramedic ambulance motorcycle in London. The medic could arrive at the scene of an emergency quickly even in heavy traffic. He then suggested that ITN readers write in about great ideas that they’ve seen overseas. Responses are shown below.
What have you found to be the best, easiest or most efficient way or simply a sufficient way to learn a foreign language? Language tapes? iPod? Book? Online learning guide? Total-immersion course overseas? We asked you to write in with whatever advice or info you could provide, including details such as titles, sources, contact info and prices and also telling us how well you did communicating overseas and when that was. Following are responses we received.
Tell ITN about the funniest thing that ever happened to you while traveling in a foreign country. There are no restrictions on length. (ITN prints no info on destinations in the U.S., Canada, Mexico or the Caribbean.) The ITN staff will choose each month’s winner, who will receive a free one-year subscription to ITN. Entries not chosen cannot be acknowledged.
This month’s winner is HARRY PEARSON of Cape Canaveral, Florida:
On our 2-week visit to Quito, Ecuador, in January ’06, my wife, Barbara, and I found intercity buses to be easy to use and cheap.
We’ve found the “hop on/hop off” buses in the larger cities not only one of the best buys but an economical way to see the city.
The ad in ITN for FLO USA, Inc. (4044 W. Lake Mary Blvd., Unit 104-339, Lake Mary, FL 32746; 888/435-6872), caught our eye. My husband and I had been in Turkey in 1994 as part of an independent ’round-the-world trip and had often talked of returning. FLO USA’s 15-day tour that included the 2006 solar eclipse sounded almost too good to be true. When we checked their website and learned it also included several days in Cappadocia, we called and made our reservations for the March 19-April 2 trip.
Improvisational travel is challenging, exhilarating and the ultimate expression of freedom because one can go where, when and with whom one chooses on a daily basis. It’s also exciting because it varies — sometimes wildly — from its more predictable counterparts: cruises and professionally organized tours with their frequently inflexible itineraries.