In April of 2005, my husband and I spent a wonderful week in Istanbul. We were enthralled with the mosques and bazaars and all the historic sights. We particularly enjoyed the very affable people we met there, and their easy sense of humor.



But as everyone who has been there knows, you can't walk more than a block or two without being pitched by a street vendor. Most often the attempted hustles aretoward a carpet shop, but everything imaginable is being peddled everywhere. ...

After many months of valiant resistance, I finally broke down under the constant advertisements for cheap flights flogged by the European budget airlines, and bought my girlfriend and myself a pair of 6 tickets to Venice (no, that's not a typo) on Ryanair. If you're curious, 6 is about $12 US. Of course, the flight did leave Stansted at 6 in the morning (which meant getting up to catch a 4AM bus); flew into Treviso (rather than Marco Polo, thus necessitating an hour-long bus ride to Venice); and ...

Bermuda, April 1971.............Spring break with my college girlfriends and I was certain I had died and gone to Heaven. So while there I made a promise to return on my honeymoon with the man I loved. Well, 3 (yep, count 'em 3!!) honeymoons later I, sadly,still had not returned. And then I discovered Luxury Link and an auction for Horizons & Cottages. One click and we were almost there! I could see the pink sand, feel it between my toes. Are we there yet? I was childlike with anticipation and ...

The Naked Truth Part I
When I was first married, my husband and I decided the best way to avoid holiday conflicts was to visit each family once a year. His family for Easter--mine for Christmas one year, then switch. That left Thanksgiving, and, rather than cause problems, we went out of the country, so nobody would have bad feelings (and wed get a much-deserved rest).
In those days, Club Med was the hottest thing going, so we did just that. One year was spent in Martiniquewell-known ...

In the summer of 2000, my best friend and I backpacked through New Zealand and Australia. We decided to make Fraser Island, off the coast of Brisbane and heralded as the world's largest sand island, a stop on our travels. At the time it was cheap livin' so we were camping. We took a ferry and trekked to our campsite, enjoying the scenery but worrying that daylight would run out before we got to our spot.

We enjoyed our first evening, feasting on dried noodles reconstituted with hot ...