Prior to traveling in Mongolia and China in April ’05, I called Orchard Bank to tell them that I would be using their MasterCard while overseas. Even with that, it didn’t work in the ATM in Beijing nor anywhere else, for that matter! I also had a TJX Capital One Visa card and a debit card, however, and both worked fine.

The same MasterCard did not work on a trip to the “Stans” the following month, although, again, my Capital One Visa card did work. In fact, in the Sheraton in Tbilisi...

I saw the reader’s letter “Tips for a London Visit” (Aug. ’06, pg. 19), which mentioned traveling from Heathrow Airport to London on the underground.

The tube may be the cheapest, but unless you’re traveling with only a briefcase, what do you do with your luggage? I can’t tell you the number of times I have seen people who have tried that method and have had to struggle with their luggage down the stairs when they changed lines to get to their hotels.

For the average traveler...

On Dec. 7, 1997, the L.A. Times “Travel” section published a letter of mine entitled “The Price Was Right,” regarding a medical emergency that I experienced in Bilbao, Spain, after eating a bad trout in a restaurant and getting severe food poisoning.

In my letter, I extolled the virtues of socialized medicine for travelers to that country, as the cost to me was $0.00, even though the treatment included a doctor’s house call, ambulance, lab tests, x-rays, EKG and the care of physicians...