On a visit to Shanghai that my husband, John, and I made in January 2015, I checked one more thing off my bucket list when we had a drink at the Long Bar in the Waldorf Astoria Shanghai on the Bund (No. 2 Zhongshan Dong Yi Road, Huang Pu District, Shanghai 200002, P.R. China; phone +86 [0] 21 6322 9988 or, in the US, 800/445-8667, www.waldorfastoriashanghai.com/english).

The Waldorf Astoria officially opened in 2011 in the restored, historic Baroque Revival building that once was...

In early June 2015 I had the opportunity to realize one of my long-held travel fantasies: traveling by barge on the timeless Canal du Midi in southwestern France. The journey was inspired by the experience of an adventurous British couple portrayed in the 2005 book “Narrow Dog to Carcassonne” by Terry Darlington.

On a partially hosted cruise aboard European Waterways’ oldest and best-known barge, the 8-passenger Anjodi, my wife, Gail, and I lived a life of luxury...

It is not the most northerly botanic garden in the world but one of the most northerly gardens, sharing that distinction with those hardy plants shivering on the edge of the Arctic in Norway and Russia.

No matter! When I learned of the existence of Lystigarður Akureyrar, a botanic garden located in the far-northern reaches of Iceland in the town of Akureyri, I looked forward to wandering its paths as a highlight of my late-September/early-October 2014 Iceland Ring Road driving...