Deciding to visit Romania and Bulgaria, a friend and I found an interesting small-group tour, Sept. 21-Oct. 4, 2014, through a higher-end company with which we had previously traveled, Travcoa (El Segundo, CA; www.travcoa.com). We placed a deposit on the tour and secured the air, which was nonrefundable. Just days before the final payment was due, Travcoa notified us that the trip had been canceled.

We didn’t want to lose money on the airfare and we still wanted to visit the...

My wife and I spent two weeks in Portugal, mainly focusing on Lisbon and Porto, in September 2015. In each city, we rented an apartment for six nights. I would highly recommend these apartments, both of which were booked through Homeaway.com (www.homeaway.com).

• In LISBON, we booked Homeaway Rental No. 841261, for which we paid €100 (near $110) per night plus a €40 cleaning fee. A 30% deposit was made via PayPal at the time of booking, with the remainder paid in cash upon arrival....

I saw the item stating that travelers no longer will be able to get pages added to their US passports after Dec. 31, 2015 (Aug. ’15, pg. 58).

While serving as a volunteer for Travelers Aid International (www.travelersaid.org)* at Washington Dulles International Airport in 2012, I heard about a case in which Immigration agents in South Africa had refused to check in a passenger who didn’t have enough blank pages (six, I think) in his/her passport.** 

Because of this, I suggest...