Features

Sandra Yon, Virginia Beach, VA

Two traveling friends and I had a fantastic 3-week adventure in Outer Mongolia, The Land of Blue Sky, in July ’08. We chose this destination because we wanted to attend the annual Naadam Festival, a sort of Mongolian Olympics. Held every July 11-13, the festival features horse racing, archery and wrestling, competitions that go back many centuries to the military training of ancient warriors.

Starting in UB

We flew into the capital, Ulaanbaatar — or “UB,” as the locals call it — after several days of seeing the sights in Beijing, China...

by Ailsa Donnelly, Binghamton, NY

Interested by the chance to see an almost totally unspoiled African country, my husband, Nick, and I planned a visit to Malawi for February ’09.

Making arrangements

Reserving our flight was interesting. I tried to use our mass of frequent-flyer miles about 10 months before we were due to leave but kept finding “no seats available for that date.” I checked routes through every possible airport in Europe and kept coming up with fares of $3,000-$4,000, so I finally went to our local AAA travel agency.

The very helpful agent...

by Donald Tremblay, Santa Monica, CA

For more than 50 years, since my wife, Lili, and I first met at UCLA, I had been hearing about the country of Lithuania — her birthplace and the area that she and her family had escaped from in advance of occupying Russian Communist forces during World War II. Much had transpired during the intervening years and, finally, with Lithuania in 1990 having again declared its independence, the opportunity to visit arrived.

Getting there

Although Lili and I are experienced world travelers, we somehow had never been able to fit a visit...