“A Journey of Enlightenment in Sri Lanka & South India,” Dec. 2-18, 2015, was my second trip with Road Scholar (Boston, MA; 800/454-5768, www.roadscholar.org) and, again, it was a very successful one.

I paid $3,499 for the tour plus a single supplement of $965. This included internal flights between Sri Lanka and India. There were 11 in our group.

While our group was in Sri Lanka, an unprecedented flood was taking place in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India, our next...

Embracing travel memories, two places stand out the most.

• During a trip that my wife and I took to Scandinavia about eight years ago, we rode the rails for 18 hours from Stockholm, Sweden, to Narvik, NORWAY. From there, we flew to Trondheim and eventually made our way to Myrdal Station by rail. From there, we rode the Flåm Cog Railway, which descends 2,840 feet to Flåm in 12 miles. This is one of the 10 steepest railways in the world.

We stayed at a pension in Flåm,...

London is a popular destination during the Christmas holidays and deservedly so. My wife, Paula, and I flew out of Charlotte on Dec. 25, 2015, arriving at London’s Heathrow airport on Dec. 26, and we returned from London on Jan. 1, 2016. While we expected schedules for attractions would be affected by the holidays, we discovered that transportation options were significantly reduced as well.

My pre-trip research enabled us to avoid nasty surprises; however, the holiday season...