The Traveler's Journal

Renting a car? Is the deal you think you're getting accurately reflected in the final bill? Here are steps to avoid unpleasant surprises.

Far removed from the whirl of ski resorts, these mountains offer many places of quiet contemplation. We offer a few suggestions.

Shedding the stereotypical image of a refuge for city slickers, many dude ranches around the country are attracting a more sophisticated crowd.

Lancaster County in south central Pennsylvania is the setting for numerous Amish tradition farms. Some even accommodate paying guests, especially if they're willing to help with the chores.

On this morning in 1980, the top half of this majestic mountain in SW Washington disappeared in a cataclysmic blast. 37 years later, Mother Nature has already healed many of the surface scars.

Bonanzaville USA, just west of Fargo, the museum of the Cass County Historical Society, consists of 47 buildings on 12 acres, many historic and from the N.D. region. More than 400,000 eclectic objects are on display.

Although stark, the hills of SW South Dakota can also be exceedingly beautiful.

With America's air traffic systems so tightly wound, a delay anywhere can have a ripple effect that creates havoc elsewhere.

India's largest city, Mumbai is also its capital of finance, commerce, and entertainment.

The Minho, the province in Portugal's northwest corner, is a charming and less visited region with tastes all its own.

Tea, in its many blends and preparations, is the world's most widely consumer beverage.

Today is national tourism awareness day. Tourism, in all its various forms and manifestations, ranks among the world's most powerful economic engines.

Though Hanoi is the country's capital, much of its city life and business follow in traditional ways.

Still the beating commercial heart of Vietnam, the city once known as Saigon, is again the Pearl of the Orient.

This corner of northwest Viet Nam still retains many of its pre-Colonial ways.

Once a major river port, this gem of an East Texas town still has many beauties to flaunt at its annual Pilgrimage, which happens this week.

Among its myriad other charms, Tucson, Arizona may also be America's most observant city.

Amusement parks around the world are pushing the limits of higher, faster, steeper, and death-defying. Be thrilled but don't be blind to real risks and dangers.

Speckswald, a vast forested expanse east of Frankfurt, was home to the brothers Grimm of fairy tale fame. It is still of antique towns with plenty of half-timbered charm.

Sometimes, the best way to get a sense of self is by looking at people elsewhere.