The sandstone tombs at Al Ula suddenly put Saudi Arabia on the travel map a few years ago, but how do you actually get there?

While planning our trip to the Maldives, we debated whether to stay on a private resort island, a local inhabited island, or both.

We spent $1,105 on the big ticket items on the ground in Finland, and $607 getting in and out, plus a little more on snacks and dinners.

North of the Arctic Circle, Wilderness Hotel Inari sits on the banks of Lake Inari, one of the largest lakes in Finland.

In early October we traveled to Finnish Lapland to try our luck at spotting the Northern Lights on the banks of Lake Inari, a tiny town under the aurora belt.

Lapland experiences a short blaze of golden yellow fall foliage in September; by October only the evergreens are left. The mornings start off clear, but a thick gray blanket of clouds rolls in by afternoon. It’s quiet everywhere.

Five years ago, we tasted a spicy Sri Lankan rice dish in Australia that I still think of from time to time…

Our first year of full-time travel took us from Boston to Europe, Asia, Australia, New Zealand, and Hawaii. This is our route – we hope you’ll find it useful.

We should have known in early February, when we evacuated my mother from China. We were in a small town in Colombia then with no running hot water, a world away.

On a continent that often proved frustrating, Mendoza, Argentina could not have been a more welcoming respite, a food and wine paradise with leafy tree-lined boulevards and the nicest people.