Travelers' Intercom

April 2019 issue | Appears on page 42

Lightweight-packing tips
By Wayne Stickle

Mark Gallo's article "Traveling ultralight" (Feb. '19, pg. 43) is the type of packing I do anytime I go on a trip (unless my wife is along, and then we have to have a checked bag). I use a different approach, however, in that I don't wash my own clothes on the road.

I've found that laundry places are ubiquitous and cheap in the areas where I travel, which is Latin America and Southeast Asia. On a recent trip to Cozumel, Mexico, I paid MXN35 (about $1.80) for...

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March 2019 issue | Appears on page 14

Heathrow-to-London options
By R.V. Nagesh

Getting into central London from Heathrow Airport with bags is usually an expensive and tedious process. Having stayed at a hotel in London's Marble Arch area, Jan. 8-15, 2019, I wanted to share my experience.

• Online, I looked at the Paddington Heathrow Express train from Heathrow's Terminal 5 to Paddington Station. It costs at least £20 (near $26) per person and would involve going on the Underground (with your bags), then taking a taxi from Paddington to your...

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March 2019 issue | Appears on page 14

Tips on booking hotels and on insurance
By Judy Serie Nagy

I am a volunteer advocate for Chris Elliott's travel help forum, Elliott Advocacy (www.elliott.org). I travel often but have never worked for a travel provider. I previously shared with ITN readers information about some of the issues people have reported regarding booking flights (Nov. '18, pg. 12). In this letter, I'd like to share some of the hotel- and car-booking issues we've seen, along with some personal advice, particularly about travel insurance.

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March 2019 issue | Appears on page 16

A senior self-drive in Greece
By Betty Fashingbauer

I have been reading ITN for many years, learning many things, and felt that I should finally contribute.

On Nov. 1, 2018, I returned from an 8-week stay in Greece, where, as a 77-year-old woman traveling alone, I traveled mostly by rental car without a problem.

My first car rental was in Crete for a week. It was a small, automatic Peugeot — a luxury I felt I deserved. (I usually rent cars with manual transmissions.) When that went well, I rented another one in late...

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March 2019 issue | Appears on page 26

Car and driver replaced on Caucasus tour
By Albert Podell

I took a unique new tour from Spiekermann Travel, "Wild Frontiers of North Caucasus," May 5-22, 2018.

It covered the remote Caucasus republics of southernmost Russia — Chechnya, Dagestan, Ingushetia, North Ossetia-Alania and Kabardino-Balkaria — from the Caspian Sea to the Black Sea across the entire chain of the northern Caucasus Mountains. It also went to the self-proclaimed country of Abkhazia, which is still internationally considered part of Georgia.

The tour...

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March 2019 issue | Appears on page 28

Caravan Tours’ ‘icing on the cake’
By Victor Block

Dismay and disappointment were what my wife, Fyllis, and I experienced when the call came that our Jan. 20-27, 2019, tour to Panama had been canceled. "Panama Canal Cruise, Rainforests & Beaches" was to be our first tour with Caravan Tours (Chicago, IL; 800/227-2826, www.caravan.com).

What we were told next, however, turned what could have been a doomsday dispatch into a delight.

First, we learned that another departure of the same tour would be leaving a day earlier and...

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March 2019 issue | Appears on page 30

Semi-independent with JayWay
By Marcia Brandes

Those hesitant to travel independently in Central Europe might enjoy the kind of semi-independent tour that my husband and I took in June 2015. Most of our travel arrangements were made through JayWay Travel (New Rochelle, NY; 800/344-5785, jaywaytravel.com), mostly by email but sometimes by phone.

During the year I spent planning the trip, JayWay was very accommodating, making changes as I made adjustments to our itinerary. They also offered several price categories for hotels. Our...

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March 2019 issue | Appears on page 30

Cosmopolitan Casablanca
By Stephen Addison
Ablution area in the lower level of the Hassan II Mosque — Casablanca. Photos by Stephen Addison

Casablanca is probably the first city that comes to mind when thinking of Morocco. There's the movie, of course, and the city's name conjures up the exoticism of North Africa.

Visitors to Morocco's other imperial cities (e.g., Marrakesh and Fez) will experience exoticism aplenty, but in Casablanca, not so much. As ITN subscriber Fran Koort noted in the May 2018 issue (pg. 35), "Casablanca could almost be a European city."

Based upon the May 2018 visit...

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