My wonderful Italian cousins are always finding different day trips for us to enjoy when I visit them. On a trip to Italy in August ’12, we visited two very different places.

One was Anzio, site of the famous WWII battle about 56 miles southwest of Rome. From Stazione Termini in Rome, the train ride took about an hour. 

Right outside the Anzio train station was a beautiful fountain of Neptune. Surrounded by palm trees, I found it difficult to imagine this beautiful, serene...

I wanted to tour the Italian islands of Sardinia and Corsica, and the only appealing itinerary I found that included both was offered by Saga (Enbrook Park, Folkestone, Kent, CT20 3SE, U.K.; phone +44 [0] 1303 771190. Note: US residents cannot book online; they must book via phone or email). 

The price for my 13-day tour, June 6-18, 2012, was £1,499 (near $2,278), which included round-trip air from London Stansted Airport to Cagliari, Sardinia. The single supplement was £229 ($348),...

My wife, Berdine, and I took an independent trip to Peru, Feb. 21-March 3, 2013. We flew on LAN, nine hours nonstop from San Francisco to Lima on a Boeing 767. Business class had flat beds. 

We felt safe everywhere in Peru. Lima, a city of about 11 million, was a real surprise. While it has its share of poverty, it was much more prosperous than we had imagined, with good hotels, great scenery (especially in the Miraflores beach area) and wonderful restaurants. Traffic could be very...