Moldova, Ukraine and Belarus had been on our list for a while. Exhaustive internet searches took my wife, Patti, and me all over the map, from bargain bus tours ($7,000 for two people for 16 days) to very expensive motorcoach tours ($15,000 for two people for 14 days). All were limited to the major cities, spending four to five days in Kiev, Minsk, Odessa and Brest. 

But Eastern Europe is so much more than the big cities. The countryside and small enclaves with castles, forts,...

I biked the Danube cycle path from Donaueschingen, Germany, to Budapest, Hungary, approximately 1,260 kilometers (793 miles), in June 2018. I did this because most older people do not give themselves physical challenges, and I wanted to give myself a challenge and a reward for staying in shape. I found I was able to slowly increase my mileage as the days continued. 

During the first half of this trip (June 6-16), biking alone before meeting friends in Passau, Germany, I managed...

My husband, Steve Mullen, and I traveled independently through India for a month in November-December 2017 (Nov. ’19, pg. 30). We started with the Golden Triangle, a tourist circuit taking in Delhi, Agra and Jaipur. We loved it, but some of my most vivid memories are of other places we visited, including Shimla.

I think of Shimla as a spur of the Golden Triangle. From Delhi, we traveled north to Shimla, a historic town in the Himalayan foothills. Every hot, humid summer during...