(First of three parts)

Partway through my visit to Morocco in September ’04, I realized that there were similarities there to what one might find on a trip in California.

A quick look at a map showed that Morocco is roughly the same size as California, it has a long, west-facing ocean shoreline and, like California, it has deserts and a central north-south mountain range.

In Morocco I was not disappointed with the exotic differences from California that I found — I had...

(Part one of two)

Bolivia is a land of former fantastic riches and present poverty. A major part of the country is steaming Amazon lowlands. Most tourism is to the nearly 3-mile-high Altiplano, with the highest capital in the world, La Paz, and the highest airport in the world. On an 8-day trip in October ’04, I stayed in modern 5-star hotels with room rates in the $40-$50 range.

Amazing Lake Titicaca, the highest navigable lake in the world, has floating islands made of reeds...

(First of two parts)

In February ’04 I spent 10 days in Israel, and five things made unexpected impressions on me.

• First, I spent a couple of days each in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem completely on my own, visiting historical sites and marketplaces without seeing any signs of the problems that fill the newspapers here at home. Security was tight and effective at EL AL Israel Airlines, but that has been the case for many years. On a previous trip about 10 years ago, I saw occasional...