Travelers' Intercom

As I began preparing for an 80-day cruise around South America that was scheduled to start on Jan. 4, 2019, I became interested in what would happen to my remains should I not succeed in finishing the journey. (86 at the time, I turned 87 this May.)

Where would my cadaver go? Who would pay to ship it home or for cremation? What problems would there be for my children, since I have no significant other?

My research soon advised me that Holland America Line, or HAL (855/932-1711...

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View from the <i>Tarifa Jet</i> ferry. Photo by Lorenz Rychner

While sitting in the ferry terminal of Tarifa in Andalucía, Spain, on my way to Morocco on Nov. 15, 2018, I had an experience from which we all could learn.

After hearing me speak Spanish one moment and English the next, a rather distraught couple asked me for advice. They were based in Algeciras, Spain, where I had been for the last few days, and they wanted to make one trip to nearby Gibraltar, east of Algeciras, and another to the ferry port for Tangier, Morocco, on the coast in...

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As my tour group was being driven to the airport in Turkey (June ’19, pg. 20) for our various flights to the US, one member asked, “Do you all have the Mobile Passport Control app?” We all shook our heads ‘no.’ “You have to download it,” he continued. “It’s saved me so much time at Customs.”

Intrigued, I took a look at the app on the Google Play store on my Android phone. As it was described, this free app allows you to fill...

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Photo of the page of International Travel Magazine featuring the Smartphone Strategies article in the Travelers' Intercom section

When traveling internationally with your smartphone, there are ways to avoid the extremely high roaming and international calling and texting rates.

One way is to set up international calling with your service provider, but be sure to do this BEFORE leaving the US in order to avoid having to call your service provider long distance while overseas.

Also, compare the rate of using your service provider’s international calling against that of buying a SIM (Subscriber...

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Courtyard at the Magistral Palace of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta — Rome. Photo by Bill Thames

During my trip to Rome in September 2017, I visited the Sovereign Military Order of Malta (SMOM).

SMOM is an institution dating back to the Crusades. Originally known as the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, it once operated a hospital in Jerusalem. Pope Paschal II recognized the order in 1113 and declared it sovereign.

When the Saracens conquered the last of the Crusader kingdoms in 1291, the Order moved to Cyprus. In 1310, the Order moved to Rhodes after conquering that island...

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During my frequent travels over the past 20 years to and through Rome, Italy, most recently in April 2019, I’ve stayed in a small B&B named Residenza Risorgimento (Piazza Risorgimento 59, Rome; phone +39 06 686 4375, residenzarisorgimento.it/en).

With six rooms and one apartment, the B&B is in a perfect location for sightseeing. The piazza on which it’s located is right at the Vatican City wall. Turn left and walk two blocks and you’re in Saint Peter’s...

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When I booked the Costsaver trip “Cossack Explorer,” April 14-27, 2018, it seemed it would satisfy my desire to visit cities like Veliky Novgorod, Smolensk and Minsk. Though I had visited nearly all of the other cities on the itinerary several times before, I was willing to see them again on the general theory that there’s always something new to experience.

I found the tour listed in a Costsaver brochure at an AAA Travel office, where an agent booked my trip. The...

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My husband, Richard, and I wanted to see several countries in Eastern Europe on a private tour by car. (Negotiating trains and long-distance buses proved an impossibility, and a cruise would hit only coastal towns.)

My husband searched the Internet with these criteria in mind, wrote inquiries and chose ZagrebTours (Lopasiceva 12a, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia; phone +385 99 4825 035, www.zagrebtours.com).

They put together a trip that would start in Zagreb, Croatia, and that met our...

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