If you’re taking a cell phone on a trip to another country, be sure to notify your cell phone provider to see if you need to make a change to your calling plan.*

On a recent trip, I got stuck for 24 hours in the Nairobi, Kenya, airport. The airport had no local representatives for US airlines, so I had to call Delta Air Lines in the US to straighten out my flights. To rectify the problem and get a new ticket, the conversation lasted 1½ hours. My phone bill was an extra $...

The following information is for extremely thrifty budget travelers.

Remember when you could fly to Europe and back for well under a thousand dollars? It wasn’t all that long ago. Well, with new low-cost airlines along with fare wars among the majors, some low fares are back. Some come with severe restrictions, others not so many.

The low-cost airline Norwegian (see below) epitomizes the new trend toward airlines charging for items like meals and baggage. Its slogan is...

I took a sailing adventure, the “14-Day Historic Coasts/Canada & New England Discovery,” aboard the ms Veendam of Holland America Line, or HAL (Seattle, WA; 877/932-4259, www.hollandamerica.com), Aug. 29-Sept. 12, 2015.

The cruise embarked from Boston, sailed up the New England and eastern Canadian coastlines, entered the St. Lawrence River and ended in historic Québec City. As a single in a partial-ocean-view stateroom, my total cost for this trip was $5,637.

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