I’m a volunteer for Travelers Aid (202/546-1127, www.travelersaid.org). This charitable organization, founded in 1914, has information desks and helps travelers at 36 sites in the US, mainly in airports but also at bus and train stations.

I’m one of 300 volunteers at Washington Dulles International Airport. (All staff are volunteers; program managers are paid.) We have three information desks in the main terminal manned daily from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. plus volunteers behind podiums in the...

Flying Continental from San Francisco via Houston, my companion George and I arrived in San José, Costa Rica, on Oct. 26, 2009.

I did a lot of research while planning this trip and wanted a car rental so we could be more flexible and independent. In my search I found the Adventure Inn Hotel (phone 506 2239 2633, www.adventure-inn.com), whose location, near the airport, could not be better.

They offered to pay our taxi transfer from the airport and gave us a 10% discount for...

During a trip to Eastern Europe, my husband, Eugene, and I stayed at a wonderful, small hotel called the Klezmer-Hois (Ulica Szeroka 6, Kazimierz, 31-053 Kraków, Poland; phone/fax [+48 12] 411 12 45, www.klezmer.pl), May 1-8, 2010.

Located in the Kazimierz (Jewish Quarter) of Kraków, it is the epitome of charm, the dining room giving the feel of being in your grandparents’ home — tables covered with crocheted lace cloths, lovely pictures covering the walls, comfortable old furniture,...