In September ’03 I took an independent tour to Norway traveling solo. When I began my planning in June, I had three main objectives in mind: visiting the cities of Oslo and Bergen, sailing the Geiranger Fjord and crossing the Arctic Circle. With a limit of 10 days (including the days for travel to and from the U.S. to Norway), I knew it would have to be a tightly constructed trip.

Having read several articles about Norway in past issues of ITN and doing some reading in a Fodor’s guide...

We took a 55-day voyage around South America, February-April ’03. We’d taken a similar trip 10 years before on an old, slow, former Matson ship, but we were ready to do it again.

This voyage was on the Olympia Explorer of Royal Olympia (New York, NY; phone 800/872-6400 or visit www.royalolympiacruises.com). We left Los Angeles Feb. 7 and arrived at Fort Lauderdale 55 days later, on April 3, after a counterclockwise circuit of South America. Twenty-two ports were on the schedule, many...

I visited the astoundingly beautiful, inspirational and impressive sites of Borobudur and Prambanan on Java, Indonesia, in September ’03 and am sad to report that both left a bad taste in my mouth because of what has been allowed to develop at these sites.

After climbing the 3-dimensional mandala of Borobudur and being awed by its 2.4 miles of bas-reliefs, in order to exit the grounds visitors are forced to walk a very long, Disneyland-like snake-line of stalls. This line seems to go...