Twenty years ago, my husband, John, and I explored the west coast of Portugal by car. There were amazing sights to see along the way, including Sintra’s Pena Palace with its unique mixture of neo-Manueline, neo-Gothic, neo-Islamic and neo-Renaissance architecture. It looked like a page out of a fairy tale. 

Besides the Pena Palace, what stuck in my memory were the pousadas (historic places, including castles, that are now hotels) and the subject of this month’s...

Imagine being a teenager forced to spend your summer vacation with robo-tourist Rick Steves (aka “Dad”). My kids, Jackie and Andy, now in their 20s, did that a while ago. 

I had to think hard about what would make our trip to England educational and fun for travel partners who dubbed the Beatles tour in Liverpool the “most boring” one on our itinerary. Turns out most teens couldn’t care less about where Paul McCartney went to grade school. But they...

Dear Globetrotter:

Welcome to the 496th issue of your monthly foreign-travel magazine. (Approaching 500! We must be doing something right.)

I’ve got a lot to cover this month, so I’ll get right to it.

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Starting sometime in late February, the US Transportation Security Administration (TSA) quietly changed the way its agents perform pat-downs in airport security lines. 

Previously, screeners had the option to...