60 years ago my father, a U.S. Air Force officer, moved his growing family to Japan for four years. So when we had the opportunity to visit Tokyo this month, I naturally thought of my childhood and wondered if we could try to find some of my old haunts.

Many people who lose 35 pounds would splurge on a new wardrobe. I opted for this adventure—one I could share with my daughter before she left for college. That was six years ago and I’ve traveled the world since. Still, our Kili Climb remains one of the most memorable trips we’ve ever taken.

Kantishna Air Taxi mostly flies visitors around the mountain, said our pilot Andy Young. “A plane in Alaska is like a car anywhere else,” he explained. “It is how we get around. There just aren’t any roads in a lot of the state.”

Last summer, after many years away from the sport, son Matt and I decided it was time to go fishing again. We recruited our cousin-in-law Mike Sitzman and his dad John, who live in Golden, CO to join us. After some basic internet research we decided upon a spot in Canada’s Ontario Province – Garden Island Lodge

This wouldn’t be everyone’s first choice for an expensive vacation. There are no beach chairs or bars on these protected beaches, where tourists may only venture with a guide. But this is an adventure we’ll never forget, starting with those sea lions we spotted on San Cristobal Island, snoozing on rowboats as if they owned the place.

“This is going to be the first time truly putting my travel skills from growing up to the test but I know it is just the beginning,” my youngest daughter Mel wrote in the “thank you” note she left

Two parents, five overweight bags and a college-bound daughter about to burst into tears. Talk about a stressful beginning to the Long Goodbye.

As I struggled to my feet, I smiled remembering all the times her dad and I were trying to avoid a meltdown

Arriving in Paris jet-lagged, a quick trip to see Monet’s water lillies at the Musee de L’Orangerie was just the tonic. Armed with a Paris Pass, we didn’t have to wait in a long line for tickets.

Despite the blustery January weather, crowds of bundled-up tourists from around the world lined up to take the Statue Cruises ferry to Liberty Island, good-naturedly taking off belts and watches for the security screenings. The second stop would be historic Ellis Island

From the time we told Melanie we were going to France that summer, she insisted we must visit Monet’s Garden. It wasn’t that far-fetched an idea.

No, not the Splash Mountain in Walt Disney World or Disneyland, we’re actually in Norway touring the gorgeous fjords with Adventures by Disney where one waterfall is bigger and more awesome than the next

Day Six – at charming small restaurant La Locanda de le Grazie in the village of Grazie just a few miles outside the amazingly preserved undiscovered Renaissance city of Mantova (Mantua in English).

I’ve never seen such wide open slopes — no trees, no houses, just field after field of newly fallen snow. And I’ve never seen my 18-year-old daughter Mel, an avid and expert skier, as happy to ski with mom.

We are in bright yellow inflatable kayaks steering with foot pedals (I feel kind of like I’m on bumper cars cruising around the fjord, the ship in the distance, crew watching us from zodiacs. As safety is always a concern here, we are given signalers to wear around our neck—should we tip over. But the kayaks are steady and the water so calm. It is only 32 degrees but with the sun shining, it feels much warmer.

Think a maze made out of thorns—92 million fashioned into blocks in which art has been inserted, creating an open-air gallery of sorts.

Cuba: “a dose of World War II rationing, a pinch of Soviet era austerity, the family values of South America, the educational values of the US and the loquaciousness of the Irish.”

Frank Bartholomew, a United Press war correspondent, handed Antonia a deed for a run down 500-acre ranch in Sonoma, CA and then returned to cover World War II

Fragedaki is an engaging teacher as she instructs us on how to make spinach pie, tzatziki (a cucumber yogurt sauce), and stuffed tomatoes and peppers

Award-winning and well-known Jamaican Chef Brian Lumley is showing us how to make coconut curry shrimp and just-caught fish—lionfish, parrot fish, snapper

If you thought a dude ranch was just about horses, think again—even a historic one like the White Stallion Ranch in Tucson, owned by the True family for decades

Only the huge stone fireplace is left of the Nanny’s Cabin and Camp Vigil is the kid-friendly Ranch at Emerald Valley, part of the historic Broadmoor Resort

Likely because we are stuck at home, I’ve been thinking about once-in-a-lifetime outdoor meals we’ve enjoyed on vacation.

Finally! Five hours after we were scheduled to leave, the helicopters started to fly again, taking two or three passengers at a time rather than four because of the conditions

After a five-mile hike, we’re sitting on a rock taking in the panoramic view from the North Rim of the Grand Canyon

Hoodoos actually have eroded out of cliffs, forming thin walls of rock called fins.Isn’t nature amazing?! Here at Bryce Canyon we are at the top of what is famously called “The Grand Staircase”

Flathead Lake Lodge is much more than a lodge – it’s a ranch, farm and acre upon acre of wilderness and lakefront.

Meet Grizzly #399, perhaps the most famous bear in North America not only because of her advanced age (24) but her fertility (she has had seven litters—20 cubs. This year’s quadruplets, Smith said, account for only two percent of Grizzly Bear litters.

You can’t get much more remote — or farther away from cruise crowds than at Kenai Fjords Glacier Lodge, which opened 10 years ago — the first and only lodge in the national park and accessible only by a four-hour boat trip from Seward

The experience, of course, is entirely different, as I discovered. Think being on a mega cruise ship with morning-till-night activities vs. your own private yacht with a staff to cater to every whim

At the state-of-the-art Naylor Family Dinosaur Gallery at the Witte Museum in San Antonio, where you can step inside a cast of an Alamosaurus footprint at The Dino Lab. What’s different from other dinosaur exhibits? This one is focused on ancient creatures that called Texas home, including ancient fish, turtle and, yes, a full-size Tyrannosaurus rex.

Kevin Gerber isn’t even a “Star Wars” fan, but he had happily just spent $100 to build a droid with his 5-year-old son at Disney World’s Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge’s Droid Depot

Pearl is the new go-to area of San Antonio – a 22 acre mixed use space for housing, shopping, dining, a year-round farmer’s market, riverside amphitheater and the third campus of the Culinary Institute of America

On this “day at sea,” the kids put off playing a game in Club Mariner to impart some wisdom for kids whose parents and grandparents may be planning a cruise

Nelson Mandela would have turned 101 this year, at a time when South Africa has been rocked by political corruption and still fraught with the ills that Apartheid wrought

We just spend five days and four nights on the Yampa River in Dinosaur National Monument with the premier river rafting outfitter OARS. Take a look at some of our photos

Welcome to San Francisco’s Presidio — nearly 1,500 acres transformed from a bustling army post to a national park, the largest national park in an urban area, drawing 7.5 million visitors a year

Young Colorado art critics were among the thousands who came to Breckenridge to see the results of the work of 16 teams from around the world that came to this historic mountain town to create enormous snow sculptures

The Madikwe Game Reserve borders Botswana to the north and is home to the famous “Big Five.” Before breakfast one morning, we’d seen four of them — lions, elephants, Cape buffalo and white rhino

Food has become increasingly important to traveling families as kids have expanded their palates by first watching the Food Network and then trying new foods on vacation. I can’t think of a better way to experience a new culture than through food or a better place than Italy where it won’t take any coaxing to convince kids to “eat local.”

Little Taste of Italy Part II starts at the Umbria Region farmhouse (viaumbria.com) in Canarra with tours of Perugia, Spello, Assissi and Gubbo, then moves to Bologna and Parma, where we observed the making of Parmaggiano Reggiano cheese.

A Little Taste of Italy – October 2018 – Pt 1 – Starts in Milano with tour of Verona and Valpolicella Wine Region, followed by 6-day Uniworld River Cruise aboard the River Countess. Excursions to Ferrara, Padua, Chiccogia and Turano, with lots of time to explore Venice.

Today, six million people a year visit Assisi, a hillside medieval town of 25,000 in Umbria, making it the second most visited religious site in Italy after Rome

For my husband and daughter, it proved a fun shared experience—choosing the recipe, shopping for ingredients, and then two evenings cooking in our VRBO rental

A first Gondola ride up a mountain is exciting for anyone—dogs included. And when Trooper gets to the base of Peak 8 on Breckenridge mountain, she is officially a mountain dog!

There’s no better place to see reconciliation at work that than in Berlin where the Berlin Wall, as of last month, has been down longer than it was up

Everyone is busy getting ready for the black-tie New Year’s Eve bash. Here in Antarctica, it’s a giant penguin party, of course. Whales are invited too

“This is our special place,” said Gwen Larder. I get it. We honeymooned here 35 years ago and have returned 5 times. Curtain Bluff is our special place too.

It is pouring, raining so hard that we’re getting soaked despite good rain gear. Did I mention we are on bikes riding alongside the Danube River in Austria?

As fun as Colorado is in the summer, there’s something more important going on here at the YMCA of the Rockies. “It’s eating and joking around with all of our cousins.”

We walked amid thousands of penguins (we saw five species) not bothered by our presence and fur seals who were. The huge elephant seals ignored us, as did the humpback whales we watched from zodiacs.

they’re juvenile King Penguins, also known as “Oakum Boys,” who still have a fluffy coat of downy brown feathers and they’re pecking at their moms to feed them

Germany has the most holiday markets in Europe, drawing tourists from around the world, though you’ll also find them a popular holiday tradition in neighboring Austria, Switzerland and Czechoslovakia.

I wondered when I planned this trip if my gang of grown kids, who love nothing more than tearing down those steep slopes, would like a more laid-back holiday — at least for a few days on a week-long winter trip to Colorado. I needn’t have worried.

I’ve learned first hand that encouraging kids to be global citizens, to be comfortable outside their own comfort zones, helps them navigate unfamiliar and difficult turf in their lives as they grow up.

As I kept thinking about all of those architectural monstrosities that we saw on our tour of Nuremberg, I reminded myself of that photo I saw in Berlin of the Nazis crouching in fear at war’s end. How the mighty have fallen, I thought.

It is eight in the morning and we are a few blocks from the hotel at Tokyo’s famous Tsukiji Fish Market, Japan’ largest. More than 15,000 people work here; international tourists line up in the early hours of the morning for the chance to watch the famous fish auctions,

I’ve got chills as Amber Whaley, 12, and her friend Miko Uno, 11, lead us into their elementary school’s basement. This was all that was all that remained of the Honkawa Elementary School when the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima 70 years ago this past August 6.

There’s shop after shop of kitchen wares—ceramic sake cups, wooden bowls for miso soup, colorful bowls for rice, all varieties of chop sticks and of course hand-made Japanese knives that will be engraved on the spot with your name in Japanese. And everything is a bargain!

No cruise is complete without its follies and unexpected discoveries.