My husband, Jerry Vetowich, and I took a custom tour to Alaska, July 19-Aug. 1, 2021. As our travel agent, we chose ITN advertiser Varini de Silva of Ceylon Express International (Huntington Beach, CA; 800/423-9566, www.ceylonexpress.com). She had previously arranged trips for us in Sri Lanka and China and was great at following up, when necessary.

Varini used Alaska Tours (Anchorage, AK; 866/317-3325, alaskatours.com) to arrange the details of our tour, and they did an excellent job...

Normally, I take several international tours each year (I’ve been to 55 countries), but because of COVID, its been almost two years since I’ve gone anywhere, so I decided to look for a historical domestic tour. I found an interesting Civil War tour out of Washington, DC, with FFC Historical Tours (Baltimore, MD; 410/733-2912, facebook.com/ffchistoricaltours),* so I flew up.

Taking place Sept. 24-28, 2021, it cost $1,200 per person, double occupancy, or $1,400, single, and...

Tired of being at home and thinking things might be getting back to normal, in April we booked a family vacation for six that seemed manageable: a 7-day small-ship cruise in Alaska’s Inside Passage, departing July 21, 2021.

American Cruise Lines (800/460-4518, americancruiselines.com) asked us to confirm we were vaccinated. As it turned out, two guests and a crew member on the July 4 sailing tested positive, and it was canceled as well as the following one. We waited nervously...