Iris and her group arrive in Salvador in Brazil. What can I say about Salvador? I loved the place. It wasn’t so when I first arrived because we got there quite late at night, we were all tired and then found we had a hike across a busy main road to a dirty little side…

U. S. Soldiers Home, Washington: during a century of travel (well 78 years!) both in and out of service I have travelled to over 150 countries (I count both North and South Dakota as countries) and for some reason have jotted signs and happenings that I thought funny at the time (and now wonder why).…

Meeting news from our branches around the world.

Judy from the US write in to tell the Beetle about her recent visit to Siem Reap. This is what she says: My husband and I were in Siem Reap for the full moon 8 Nov 03. Candles were set floating in the Siem Reap River which flows through the village. It was an awesome…

Find out what happened at previous meetings in London and about future events Saturday 6th December 2003 London meeting Our first speaker was Paul Goldstein whose talk was entitled “Africa: An adventurous wilderness”. Paul has led many tours into sub Saharan Africa for adventure tour operators over the last few years. We started with shots…

The latter part of the flight over was terrific, with snow on the Gran Sasso first and then, towards the end, there was the fabulous spectacle of the Aeolian Islands with Stromboli puffing away. Etna, on Sicily itself, was puffing a bit but nothing to suggest the major eruption it had the next winter. We…

From women who work at re-opened museums to hunky gym rats who worship Arnold Schwarzenegger, Afghanistan has changed in the 2 years since the ouster of the Taliban. A lot more work needs to be done, but new buildings rise from the rubble to punctuate the Kabul skyline, archeological initiatives are helping tourism, and wheelchair…