Travelers' Intercom | International Travel News

April 2005 issue

Egyptian Museum

The single most important, not-to-miss place in Cairo is the Egyptian Museum. We wish we’d had more than one day there on our visit in March ’97, but the one we had was wonderful.

The Tutankhamon exhibit, part of which we had seen when it was on exhibit in Los Angeles in the 1980s, had far more in it than I expected. The craftsmanship, artistic style and mint condition of many of the items were greater than I remembered.

The solid gold mask and the coffin and throne of Tuntankhamon are, of course, the highlights, but there are countless little surprises as you work your way...

August 2010 issue

Obervations on Egypt

The following is supplemental advice for your first trip to Egypt, based upon experiences from an April ’10 trip I made with my wife and several friends. These tips and observations cover topics that either were not addressed or, more commonly, did not receive sufficient emphasis in the guidebooks and Internet resources we consulted pretrip.

These tips only complement your guidebooks. Guidebooks contain lots of good information and useful suggestions that are omitted here (e.g., don’t drink the water).

Among pleasant surprises, the sights (pyramids, tombs, temples, etc.)...

July 2010 issue

‘Masterful job’ by GCT

About to depart for home on April 17 after Grand Circle Travel’s “Holland & Belgium in Springtime” — an excellent cruise-tour aboard the R/V River Aria — we got word that all flights were canceled due to the ash cloud from Iceland.

That evening we were advised to relax because passengers would be able to stay on the ship, and meals would be provided too, at no charge. There was no discrimination between travelers who had insurance and those who did not (like us).

Grand Circle did a masterful job of handling the problem. Some of the 160 people who had been in our group...

January 2004 issue

Castle heating charges astronomical

ITN was mailed a copy of the following letter, sent by a reader to Mr. Joe Hyman of Country Cottages.

As requested during our phone conversation, I am summarizing the problems we had during our 2-week rental (April 19-May 3, ’03) of the property you represent, the Castello La Rocca in Traversa, the Mugello, Italy (postal address: Loc. Traversa, 50033 Firenzuola, Firenze Province, Tuscany, Italy).

You are already aware of the outrageous charge we were to be assessed for the weekly cleanup: $450 per week, or a total of $900 for the two weeks. As you know, we were not informed...

August 2010 issue

The muezzin’s call

I wanted to react to a comment a subscriber made in reviewing the Hotel Stone in Istanbul (March ’10, pg. 4). He noted two drawbacks of the hotel, the second being its proximity to mosques, where “the morning call to prayer is a wake-up call at around 6 a.m.”

I don’t want to disparage the writer’s likes and dislikes, for we all have them. I just want to say that what is a drawback for one man may be a benefit to another.

Over the years, I made a total of 36 overseas trips, mostly with my wife. We traveled as a couple independently, for that helped me satisfy my travel urge,...

November 2010 issue

Patagonia with OAT

Mark & Linda Young and Nell & Ed McCombs at Pia Glacier, Chile

Argentina’s Perito Moreno Glacier is one of the few glaciers in the temperate world that is still advancing. It is 240 feet high, a bit over three miles wide and part of a huge ice field containing the world’s third-largest reserve of fresh water. A visit to the glacier was part of the 14-day “Patagonia, Tierra del Fuego & Chilean Fjords” trip my daughter Linda, son-in-law Mark and husband, Ed, and I took with Overseas Adventure Travel, Feb. 7-19, 2010.

January 2011 issue

Paid for a nonallowed upgrade

My husband, Tom, and I flew to Amsterdam on our way to board a ship on Aug. 2, 2010, out of Rotterdam. I had purchased our air tickets through our travel agent the previous February. In her office, we had talked about buying them through the cruise company or independently. Because the flight booked through the cruise line might not be direct, we decided to go directly from Seattle to Amsterdam with Delta.

Both Tom and I have Delta SkyMiles accounts, his with a lot of points. We first tried to get the tickets using these points, and when we couldn’t we decided to buy the tickets...

July 2010 issue

Belize delights

“The Flying Sauna” was what we dubbed the 16-seat puddle jumper that flew us from Belize City to Placencia. My mother, brother and three-year-old nephew, Daniel, and I were on the last leg of the flight that began our 8-day vacation in Belize, April 21-30, 2010.

We’d flown from San Francisco to Houston to Belize City. Now, en route to Placencia, everyone was sweating inside the hot, humid interior of the plane, but we enjoyed gorgeous views of the blue waters of the Caribbean and the lush, green, tropical landscape of Belize.

The four of us stayed at a lovely resort, The Inn...