For a 10-day trip to Venezuela in December ’08, two friends and I flew into Caracas, where we would return twice during our tour of the country. The Simón Bolívar International Airport is actually in Maiquetía (my-khet-EE-yah), on the Caribbean coast, not in Caracas proper. The domestic terminal is adjacent. I was told that it can take anywhere from 30 minutes to three hours to drive between the airport and the city, depending on traffic.

The airport has a reputation for being a...

Because we carry computers, we are careful never to leave them out when and where hotel staff could see them. If room service or the maid who does evening service knocks on the door (which has been secured with the inside lock plus the chain), we quickly hide these items in our suitcase and put the lid down while the staff is in the room. There’s no reason to tempt anyone.

Carry a small lock (one- to 1½-inch) with its matching key. If the safe in your room is not working or if you...

My husband, Roger, and I boarded the MS Marshal Koshevoy in Nessebar, Bulgaria, for a Black Sea/Dnieper River cruise-tour to Kiev, Ukraine, Sept. 15-27, 2008, operated by Orthodox Cruise Company (Ala­byana, 5, 125057, Moscow, Russia). We booked the tour through Russian Empire Cruises.

Upon boarding the ship, we smelled sewer gas. The odor was quite strong in the bathroom of our cabin, an upper-deck stateroom on the third of four decks. The ship was scheduled to depart at 22:00 but did...