By Carolee Cameron NABBW’s Associate for Independent Travel   Before you travel to France, it is important, even essential, to know at least three things. First, be aware that French culture is different from American, but equally, if not more, genteel. French people are quintessentially polite and considerate. Before you interpret their behaviors, be fully aware of what these behaviors communicate in France. These meanings are not the same as they would be in the United States. For example, a delay in giving you your check at the end of a meal is certainly not indicative of poor service... Read More

By Carolee Cameron NABBW’s Associate for Independent Travel   Are you ready for another “Trip of a Lifetime”? For now, sit back in your favorite chair and imagine yourself on this trip, breathing clean mountain air and taking local ferries back and forth across stunning lakes, with mountains as their backdrop. You will journey southward across the Alps from Switzerland into Italy on the William Tell Express, then northward back across the Alps into Switzerland on the Bernina Express, then westward through the Alps on the Glacier Express. Prepare yourself to gaze upon some of the most... Read More

By Carolee Cameron NABBW’s Associate for Independent Travel The adage holds. “To travel is to visit people.” Think about your trips as a child, traveling to Tarpon Springs to visit your Aunt Sadie and Uncle Bob. Then put yourself back in that frame of mind.As you pull up their driveway, you know what to expect. First everyone will greet each other happily. Then, before you even come inside to sit down, Uncle Bob will eagerly lead you out to his back shed to see and admire his dozens of multicolored parakeets. Next he will invite you out for a ride around the bay in his motor boat.... Read More

Incomparable Capitals: London, Paris & Amsterdam By Carolee Duckworth NABBW\’s  Independent Travel Associate On this trip, you will divide your time among three of the most extraordinary cities in the world, each entirely distinct from the other. In London you will stay in a flat or hotel near Covent Garden, and take in two (or, better yet, three) theater performances, with at least one of them performed at the rebuilt Globe Theater that harkens back to Shakespeare’s days. You will find the river, in this case the River Thames. As you travel the Thames, tracing the journey made by... Read More

Travel in Italy is a life-changing, deeply enriching experience… especially “Great Trip” travel. It is almost a crime against life and nature to glide past Italy encased in a tourbus. The smells of lemon trees. The colors of ceramic tiles. The leather markets and shops. The music in the piazzas at night. The views from the bridge over the Arno, looking back at the glowing marble church perched high above Piazzo Michaelangelo. The artistically prepared fresh sea bass and pasta with pesto and lightly sautéed spinach. The dazzling views of the water looking down from the rocky hills to which... Read More

Loire Châteaux, Mont St Michel, the Normandy Coast & Paris, City of Lights The world is a very big place. And world travel is one of life’s great pleasures, as well as a certain means to expand yourself. There is no such thing as a trip that leaves us untouched. We return home from each travel experience a somewhat new person – larger and more aware, appreciative and with increased social and cultural capacities. “The world is a book, and those who do not travel, read only a single page” (St. Augustine). But there is travel, and there is travel. On the one hand, there is travel... Read More

You may as well admit it. You’ve always wanted to travel in Europe, whether or not you’ve already done so. And even if you’ve traveled there many times, you yearn to go back—-again and again. For as long as there’s been an America, Americans have been drawn back to Europe, like Spock to the mothership. “Beam me up Scotty!” Whether this yearning to return is because many of our ancestors came from Europe…  Or because Europe has such a deep, rich and long-ranging history, much of it still there to wander around in… Or because it has amazing food and wine, to be experienced... Read More

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