A Balkan tour that we took in September 2018 covered several countries, each one fascinating in its own way, but our final 3-day stop in Romania had a personal dimension: a quest to find authentic pastrami, said to have started in Romania as “pastrama.”

History tells us that when Romanian Jews fled repression in the 19th and early 20th centuries, they brought little more than traditions with them, one of which was the age-old method of preserving meat with a brine made of...

For a trip to Mexico City with my wife, Arlene, Feb. 17-25, 2019, I reserved a car online with Hertz (www.hertz.com) in January. I was given a total cost of $192, which would equal MXN3,694.

However, when we went to pick up the car, the price we were charged was MXN5,490 ($285, according to my credit card statement), or 48% more, even though I had with me the original receipt with the price I had been given at booking. On my part, there was no informed consent that the price in Mexico...

Following a 6-day tour to Ethiopia in November 2018, my husband, George, and I headed to Uganda and Rwanda, where we had arranged gorilla trekking through ITN advertiser Fish Eagle Safaris (Houston, TX; 800/513-5222, www.fisheaglesafaris.com).

Our “gorilla day” in Uganda was a bit of a letdown. First, it was a long, grueling hike up to the gorillas. I was fine because I had paid extra to be carried up on a stretcher, but George could not be talked into being carried.