by Robert Juhre, Kettle Falls, WA

Travel in Botswana is limited to a few choices. You can book accommodations through one of many tour operators. Their camps are generally small, accommodating 12 to 15 people, and are remote but well appointed.

The food is gourmet, and the attention to guests’ personal care and comfort is outstanding. Visitors can see an abundance of wildlife in the immediate vicinity of most camps. However, these camps are expensive, ranging from $250 to over...

by Lynn Remly, Arlington, VA

Clattering across eight time zones, the Trans-Siberian Railway line traverses one-third of the globe and all of modern Russian history. While continuing to provide basic transportation in an area with few roads, the train also serves as a draw for hard tourist cash to help kick-start the limping post-Soviet economy.

While most people take the Vladivostok-Moscow route in worn-out cars with primitive facilities, I opted to traverse the 5,806 miles (9...

by Lesley Friedsam, Tampa, FL

I am walking on an ice floe atop the Southern Ocean, the most inhospitable sea on Earth. The only thing between me and a thousand feet of water filled with orcas, whales, penguins and seals is a 2-foot-deep crust of white, blue, gray and turquoise ice. The ice is not a flat, shiny sheet. It is raised and humped, crevassed and sculptured. Gigantic icebergs, some multistories high and a city block long, are part of this landscape created by summer meltings...