Ron Carlson of Lakeland, Minnesota, asked his fellow ITN subscribers to write about pleasant or serendipitous surprises that they had experienced while traveling outside of the US, such as the time in February 2018 when he and his wife, Joy, spent a week in Montecatini Terme, Italy, and learned there was a puppet parade (Carne vale) in nearby Viareggio, with puppets up to 50 feet tall!

ITN subscribers submitted numerous stories, and this month we’re sharing accounts of “...

The closing of borders worldwide due to the COVID-19 pandemic led to the canceling and postponing of countless travel plans. In the interest of comparing how various tour operators, airlines, cruise lines, hotels, etc., handled the disruptions and travelers’ bookings, ITN asked subscribers to write in about their experiences. Many had stories to tell, the first printed in our September 2020 issue, and we are continuing to share their accounts.

As can be seen, not only do...

At the end of ITN subscriber Pamela Zent’s letter “Unexpected Disembarkation” (June ’20, pg. 25), in which she described being left near the dock with her luggage in New York City after having to disembark a ship to join her husband, who had been taken by ambulance from the ship to the hospital, she wrote, “From ITN readers, I would really just like to know if other couples on a cruise have found themselves in a predicament where one member ended up in the...