My husband and I were in China for 2½ weeks, Oct. 10-28, 2016. We visited Shanghai, Beijing, Xi’an and Lhasa and went on a Yangtze River cruise.

Upon the recommendation of an ITN reader, I used China Travel Service (San Francisco, CA; 800/899-8618, www.chinatravelservice.com) to help plan and arrange the trip. I began working with them about 10 months before our trip.

The company is headquartered in Hong Kong but has offices throughout China and, indeed, the world...

Several months before a Celebrity Infinity cruise that would stop in the Falkland Islands, I wrote to the Falkland Islands Tourist Board (www.falklandislands.com) asking for a recommendation of a tour guide who was knowledgeable about birds. They recommended Brian Summers (summerwalks@horizon.co.fk), a local bird expert.I contacted Brian, and he quickly responded and agreed to take us to places where we were most likely to see penguins and other birds. Brian is a third-generation Falkland...

My husband and a friend and I spent a week at a resort in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, March 2-9, 2017. Although we usually cooked for ourselves in our villa, we sometimes caught ourselves in town at lunchtime.

One day, we decided to eat at a new restaurant we had spotted, Añejo Limon Restaurante (Calle Basilio Badillo 229, Puerto Vallarta; phone +52 322 222 1110, anejolimon@gmail.com). It looked like it was open, so we went in.

It turned out the owner had planned to open that day...