My husband, Rodney, and I took the “Imperial Russian Waterways” tour with Vantage Deluxe World Travel, Aug. 5-26, 2008, which included a 3-night Kiev pretrip and a 3-night Stockholm post-trip extension for a total of 22 days.

This was not only our first riverboat trip, it was our first experience in being with a group larger than 20 people. We approached it as an experiment, to see whether our avoidance of large groups was really justified.

We met some lovely people on the trip...

Two friends and I took a 10-day trip to Venezuela in December ’08. While our itinerary, which included visits to Caracas, Mérida and Canaima National Park, didn’t exhaust what Venezuela has to offer, we enjoyed our visit and some fine food and unique sights, especially at Canaima.

We encountered no danger and confronted absolutely no hostility, despite the rhetorical food fight between presidents Bush and Chavez.

On the other hand, we were told that not many North Americans had...

On Easter Island, Hotel Taura’a (Atamu Tekena s/n, Hanga Roa, Easter Island, Chile; phone [56] [32] 210 0463, fax [32] 255 1310, www.tauraahotel.cl) has 10 delightful rooms and serves delicious breakfasts. The surroundings are beautiful.

Our lovely, spotless room cost my husband, Joe, and me approximately $115 per night. (The costs I give here are based on the November ’08 rate of 620 pesos per US dollar.)

We took two all-day tours given by the hotel that we highly recommend....