My husband, Jerry, and I were booked on a Baltic cruise out of Southampton, England, starting July 25, 2015. I wanted to extend our time abroad and Scotland seemed an obvious choice, since we had never been there. We had been very happy with a fall 2014 tour of Slovenia and Croatia with Rick Steves’ Europe (Edmonds, WA; 425/771-8303,  ), so we checked out their Scotland tours.

The “Best of Scotland in 10 Days Tour,” July 13-22, worked out very nicely for our...

The tour of Iran that I took Oct. 30-Nov. 15, 2015, with Spiekermann Travel Service (Eastpointe, MI; 800/645-3233, http://mideasttrvl.com) was led by Professor Norman Jones, who teaches history and religious studies at Utah State University. 

The members of our small group of 16 were from all over the US and very compatible, and we also had a knowledgeable Iranian-Canadian guide. With round-trip airfare from Washington Dulles to Tehran on Turkish Airlines, I paid a total of $6,...

My niece and nephews, ages 27 to 30, accompanied me on a trip to Tanzania, Aug. 1-12, 2016, with Overseas Adventure Travel, or OAT (Cambridge, MA; 800/955-1925, www.oattravel.com). I had been on safaris twice before, but they had never gone.

I was expecting the animals would be spectacular, and they were. I had never seen so many lions and leopards and their kills as well as zebras, gnus, gazelles, elephants and, my favorite, warthogs. I kept track of all the birds, and we identified...