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A Silk Road Adventure 

Registan Square in Samarkand under a blue sky, with three tiled madrasahs facing a plaza where visitors stroll.
A 20-day Road Scholar tour through all five Central Asian "Stans" in spring 2026 took Peter and Cathy Dillon past visa hurdles and border crossings to Kazakh falconry, Kyrgyz goat polo, Tashkent's new Center of Islamic Civilization, Samarkand's Registan, and Turkmenistan's lavish white-marble capital, Ashgabat. They found wonderful people everywhere. READ MORE

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Tasmania: An Idyllic Island Shaped by a Brutal Past 

A smiling older man in a dark cap and a woman in a visor and sunglasses pose on either side of a lookout, framing the Tasman Arch behind them, a massive layered sandstone arch with turquoise sea surging through the gap below
In a week exploring Tasmania from a base in Hobart, Elizabeth and Phil Eschbach took small-group tours for hikes in Freycinet National Park and rainforests, and to Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary to see Tasmanian devils and wallabies. Richmond Gaol and Port Arthur revealed the island's brutal past as a penal colony. READ MORE

Discovering the Balkans by River

Castle on the Danube River
Fred and Maria Steinberg, tour skeptics, took Avalon Waterways' 11-day Balkan Discovery river cruise from Budapest to Bucharest, stopping in Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Romania. Highlights included Belgrade, Golubac's medieval fortress, Rousse, and especially Bucharest. They highly recommend the pricey cruise but wanted more unguided time ashore. READ MORE

A Musical Journey to Salzburg and Munich

A long barrel-vaulted Renaissance hall stretches into the distance beneath a ceiling densely covered with frescoes of cherubs, garlands and scrolling ornament, framed allegorical paintings of robed figures among clouds and angels along its crown, and rows of classical marble busts set in lit niches and on pedestals lining both walls above a checkered floor where a few visitors walk toward a dark carved wooden structure at the far end
Nili Olay joined a 12-person Great Performance Tours trip to Salzburg and Munich where she enjoyed excellent seats for Mendelssohn, Mahler, and opera, plus visits to outstanding cultural sites like Mozart's Residence and Munich's Residenz. She praised the tour's seamless organization and terrific transportation but wished there were pre-performance lectures. READ MORE