Travelers' Intercom | International Travel News

July 2006 issue

Advice for Americans visiting Iran

Based on my April ’06 trip to Iran, I’d like to share three practical tips with ITN readers who are thinking of going there.

First, I was told that the Iranian Interests Section of the Pakistani Embassy in Washington will not issue a tourist visa to an American unless the prospective tourist already has received a visa authorization number from Tehran.

I had to send a copy of my passport information page to the company arranging my tour, which in turn presumably sent it on to the local operator in Tehran. This can be a time-consuming process. I received my number more than a...

May 2005 issue

Wheelchair passenger concern

I was one of a group of five relatives who took a tour of Ireland and then drove around Italy in July ’04. Our flights were on Aer Lingus as well as British Air, but to get from Dublin to Venice we had to go through London, with the leg from London’s Heathrow airport to Venice on British Midland Airways.

When we arrived at Heathrow on July 21, an attendant with a wheelchair was waiting for my mother to race her through the line for boarding passes. This was the last we saw of her until the flight was boarding.

The other four of us waited in a long line for our boarding passes...

August 2006 issue

Hong Kong arrival tips

The fastest and easiest way to get to Hong Kong and Kowloon from the Hong Kong International Airport is the Airport Express train. There are several options in buying the tickets. After two trips to Hong Kong, Nov. 25-29 (staying at the Shangri-La Kowloon) and Dec. 27-29, ’05 (Holiday Inn on Kowloon), I pretty much figured them all out.

• On the first trip, my husband, John, and I cleared Customs and walked through the automatic doors. Immediately in front of us was a counter, where I purchased tickets for the Airport Express. For some reason, at this particular counter they only...

January 2006 issue

Card limits

Before traveling to Italy in October ’05, I phoned my local bank, through whom I have a combination debit/credit Visa card, to let them know I’d be using my card in Italy for the next four weeks. The information I received (and I hadn’t actually realized I should ask about any of this!) was that there’s a dollar limit on both the amount of cash I can withdraw and the amount I can charge in a day.

Also, if the card doesn’t work at first, it’s okay to try a second time that day but no more. At the third try, the card may be taken.

The other credit card I took has a dollar limit...

July 2006 issue

Good deals in Manchester

While visiting family in London in March ’06, my wife, Kay, and I took an excursion to Manchester. We booked complete travel, including local train, subway (tube) and long-haul train via Transport for London (Central Customer Services, 23rd Floor, Empress State Bldg., Empress Approach, London, SW6 1TR, U.K.; phone 020 7222 5600 or visit www.tfl.gov.uk), which allowed the selection of schedule and carrier plus online payment by credit card.

For these arrangements, we paid £59.90 each (about $209 for two). Tickets were mailed to arrive at a U.K. address four days prior to our arrival...

December 2005 issue

Ruminating on laminating

While I was spending a month in Paris, May 5-June 4, ’04, my daughter visited me for eight days. Both of us paid attention to visitors of various nationalities and found a couple of things that would have helped them navigate the tortuous streets of this city.

My daughter was happy to have a compass to line up its arrow with the creases of the maps we were using.

Perhaps the very best thing I did was to follow the advice of a young lady and 6-year resident of Paris who waited on me in San Diego’s Le Travel Store prior to the trip. I purchased a copy of the “DK Eyewitness...

April 2005 issue

LHSDGT, anyone?

Randy Keck’s article on long-haul, single-destination group tours, or “LHSDGT” (Sept. ’04, pg. 106), really hit home with me. For 25 years, when working in the corporate world, I was lucky to be able to go away for a whole week. Now that I am retired, I want to travel for long periods (at least four to six weeks) and to faraway places.

I started my adventures by taking tours, but I discovered that most tours were for less than a month and each included so many places on their itineraries that often I had only one night or, at most, two nights in each place. Most of my trip was spent...

May 2006 issue

On ATMs

I agree in general with many of the readers’ “Money Matters” comments in the December ’05 and January ’06 (pg. 92) issues.

I’ve found that American Express cards are essentially useless outside of the USA as well as at a number of places within the USA. The most universal card to use is Visa, although a number of places outside the USA will accept MasterCard.

We have found that airports and train stations now almost universally have ATMs, thus you can get the local currency immediately upon arrival. My wife and I traveled to St. Petersburg, Russia, in June ’05. Before we left...