The excitement of preparing for a trip, especially one that is out of the country, should also include careful planning. One of the most critical things any overseas traveler should have is travel insurance that covers trip interruptions and medical emergencies.

I had a firsthand experience about the benefits of insurance on a 10-day Panama Canal cruise on the Island Princess with cruise-operator specialists Susan and Russ Rosenberry of Islands in the Sun. I purchased a policy from Travel Guard, one of several capable and reliable companies, on my own, although you can purchase insurance through a tour operator or the cruise line.

The second night at sea, after a long and enjoyable dinner with Susan and Russ, I began getting a pain in my lower abdomen that became progressively more intense as the night wore on. Having had an attack of pancreatitis three years before, I suspected I was having another attack. Pancreatitis is not something to take lightly.

I finally dialed the emergency number around 5 a.m. and went to the ship’s medical center, where they put me on intravenous pain medicine and did blood tests and X-rays. By midafternoon, the ship’s chief medical office determined I needed to be put ashore at our first stop in Aruba for further tests.

I was taken by ambulance to the Dr. Horacio E. Oduber Hospital in Oranjestad, where I spent nearly four days.

Travel Guard, which is picking up all of my medical expenses on the ship and at the hospital, was in daily touch, monitoring my situation. The company arranged for a hotel room after I was discharged and arranged for my return flight home in business class along with a ticket for my daughter, who flew down to accompany me home.

I shudder to think what would have happened if I hadn’t purchased the insurance. Since it was an emergency, my health insurance might have reimbursed me for the medical costs, which I would have had to pay upfront, but I doubt it would have helped me get home.

I would also like to thank Princess Cruises, whose U.S.-based passenger assistance officers Mary Kessler and Don O’Neal were also in daily contact to offer any assistance I needed and called to make sure I had gotten home OK.

The medical staff on board, headed by Dr. Deon Venter, were very professional and competent in stabilizing my condition and making me as comfortable as possible for a full day and night at sea.

In Aruba, Carol Angie, managing director of the port agency, and Henry van Loon, the agency’s boarding officer, also looked after me, getting my luggage off the ship and storing it. Carol brought my carry-on with my toiletries to the hospital and took me to the hotel after my discharge and to a pharmacy to have a prescription (they call it a recipe there) filled.

I am deeply grateful to everyone who helped me.

                  *The five photos in this blog from our cleanup project were provided courtesy of Terrapin Blue

Local tourism leader Rogers Valencia Espinoza addresses the gathering.  Tourism Cares CEO Bruce Beckham is shown at right.

Our whirlwind adventure in Peru was wrapped up with a boisterous welcome back to Cusco for a cleanup project at Mercado San Pedro, a major downtown market in this mountain city.  Following official welcomes from local tourism leaders and remarks by Tourism Cares CEO Bruce Beckham, we got started.

Tourism Cares teams supplemented by lots of local volunteers addressed numerous facilities at this busy park.  Some crews painted light poles, while others painted kiosks.  Other groups went to work painting the marketplace's exterior walls, while others painted and filled flower pots that had long ago become filled with trash.  We worked hard for a couple of hours before taking a wonderful lunch break that included sandwiches and the local specialty, Peruvian corn on the cob.  These ears of corn feature huge kernals--some the size of marbles--and are served hot.  All of us were hooked on this local delicacy by the time we left the country.

That afternoon, we went back to work and put second coats on many items and did a lot of trim work around railings and windows.  Our video crew, Terrapin Blue, out of Athens, Georgia, got lots of great video of the event, plus many stills.  Since I was working, I did not shoot any photos of this event and want to give thanks to Ryan and Jill Kelly, the company's owners, for sending these shots for this final blog.

About 40 Tourism Cares volunteers from the U.S. participated in the restoration

This passerby wore a typical tall hat that offers protection from the sun's rays in Cusco, which sits at 11,000 feet elevation in the Andes

Volunteers of all ages donned painting gloves and went to work to restore the city marketplace

Many prominent travel industry companies were sponsors of Tourism Cares' first international project

Terraced hillsides step downward from the city's walls and courtyards

Understandably, Machu Picchu regularly rests atop the various bucket lists of worldwide travelers published by magazines and websites.  Its iconic images of a "lost world" resting high in the Andean mountain range are immediately recognizeable to most of us, like the Taj Mahal or Egyptian pyramids would be.  We took a winding bus ride up the mountain from the small village of the same name after an hour and a half train ride from Ollantaytambo to get here.

Our guide was careful to point out the variations in stone architecture that separated the living quarters here from the sacred temples or structures that addressed the Inca's spiritual beliefs.  As with Christianity, the number three was sacred to this culture and was represented in various ways--the sun, mother earth and water, for instance, or their elevation of three creatures to spiritual status--the condor, the puma and the snake.

The Incas were master architects and builders, and they built Machu Picchu with earthquakes in mind, using distinct angles for windows and doors that would allow stones to compress into one another as opposed to away from one another in the event of a tremor or worse.  Their craftsmanship as masons was extraordinary.  Thus, 600 years later, many structures in this citadel are entirely or almost entirely intact.  The Incas used a calendar they created from the movement of the sun through the seasons which allowed them to build sacred windows that were positioned to capture the sun's direct light on specific days of the year.  Their calendar was remarkably similar to the one we use today.

Peruvian tourism leaders have done much to recondition the citadel's lawns

Distant peaks give some idea of just how inaccessible this archaeological marvel really was

The Incas were master craftsmen and built "quake resistant" structures

Most of these structures date to the 15th century

During the second half of February, the “Boys of Summer” traditionally report to training camp in either Florida or Arizona to get in shape and hone their skills for the upcoming Major League Baseball season. March, however, features a full schedule of “practice” games which allows managers and coaches to evaluate their minor league talent and determine which “rookies” are likely to best complement the team’s established major leaguers.

Nobody takes these “Grapefruit League” and “Cactus League” contests too seriously. The weather is not only nice, but fans can also get relatively close to their favorite stars. Consequently, the annual one-month spring training season has been the primary reason underlying a tourist “migration” for decades. 

This spring I was able to make a substantial number of Cactus League games, all held in ten different stadiums throughout the Phoenix “Valley of the Sun” area, due in part to accompanying groups for tour operator friends who offer packages featuring their favorite teams. Attendance in general this year appeared to be up substantially over last with numerous “sell-outs” being recorded. Major attractions included Albert Pujols, the top slugger lured away from the St. Louis Cardinals by a $240 million, 10-year deal by the Los Angeles Angels, the unexpected success of the home-town Arizona Diamondbacks, who won the 2011 National League Western Division Championship, as well as the sometimes laughable but ever-lovable Chicago Cubs, who, other than the aforementioned “D-backs,” can apparently claim the biggest Arizona fan base.  

A disappointing situation that came to light, however, unrelated to baseball, is the apparent passing of any value in using the once universally popular Traveler’s Checks due their advertised capability of being “easily replaced if lost or stolen.” One of the members of a Mayflower Tours group that I assisted was a charming and well-spoken older lady from Chicago, who encountered nothing but grief in attempting to get an American Express Traveler’s Check cashed, not in some place like Outer Mongolia, but in a major U.S. city!  First, I found it strange that the Hampton Inn where the group stayed for five nights declined to cash the T.C. for a registered guest. 

Next the nearby local bank refused to do anything for someone who did not have an account there.  Finally, her last option was the branch of a national bank (Wells Fargo), which would only cash the check for a 10% service fee ($10 on a $100 T.C.!), which, at least in my humble opinion, is outrageous. Has our society really sunk to the point where common courtesy and modest service to one’s fellow man (woman, in this case) have taken back seats to indifference and corporate greed?  I sure hope not!

Pickoff Play at First Base

Troy Tulowitzki Awaits His Turn at the Plate

Here Comes the Pitch

If you haven’t been to Las Vegas recently, you may be unaware that the monumental traffic jams that formerly accumulated on U.S. 93 at Hoover Dam are now a thing of the past. In the fall of 2010, the extremely impressive Mike O’Callaghan-Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge opened over the gaping chasm, about 3/10 of a mile downstream from the dam. This replaced the narrow, winding and steep two-lane roadway that descended into Black Canyon, crossed the dam and ascended on the opposite side. 

The original road itself was definitely on the challenging side, since you had to contend with tourists, local traffic and security measures that bogged things down even further. Unless one planned to travel across the dam well after sunset, a delay of a full hour sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic could almost always be expected. On top of that, motorcoaches traveling to or from such points as Phoenix or the Grand Canyon weren’t even allowed to cross the dam, but were detoured about 23 miles out of the way via U.S. 95, NV 163, and AZ 68 through Laughlin. It was a bad situation.     

Now, traveling past the dam area is a breeze. Unless you are particularly observant when traveling by auto, or have access to elevated motorcoach windows, you’ll never even know that you are passing the dam, since high walls have been erected on the bridge to make sure that “rubbernecking” tourists don’t drive their cars into the canyon while attempting to get scenic views from above.

 The good news is that a convenient parking lot, accessible only from the Nevada side, has been built for visitors wishing to experience the spectacular panorama of Hoover Dam, Lake Mead, Black Canyon and the Colorado River, almost 900 feet below the bridge. From the lot, it is an uphill but relatively easy walk to the 1,900-foor-long, six-foot-long sidewalk that extends the bridge’s full length on the other side of the aforementioned “high wall,” facing north. There is no better place to get the full measure of the dam and its surroundings.

Visitors on the Bridge Walkway

Informational Plaque along the Walkway

Despite the numerous visitor attractions for which Las Vegas is famous, one thing that the city did not have until recently was a first-class performing arts complex. This March all of that all changed with the opening of the $450 million Smith Center for the Performing Arts, located at Symphony Park, a new downtown development that was formerly occupied by extensive railroad yards. I got to visit this truly impressive facility this spring to explore the Smith Center’s performance venues. 
   
Like his other well-known projects, the Bass Performance Hall in Fort Worth and Schermerhorn Symphony Center in Nashville, the architect, David M. Schwarz, has designed the Smith Center in art deco style. For this design, he incorporated design elements that pay homage to the art deco features of Hoover Dam. No expense was spared in obtaining Indiana limestone for the exterior, fine Italian marble for the lobbies and foyers, plus custom fixtures, decorative artwork and sculpture, as well as state of the art technical resources. Crowning the center is a 47-bell Carillon Tower. Across the entrance driveway sits the lovely Symphony Park for another special outdoor events and exhibitions venue.  

The Smith Center intends to host a wide variety of performances, ranging from “Broadway” theatre productions (The Color Purple was in the midst of a one-week run during my visit), to popular, jazz, classical and “crossover” music artists, as well as other special attractions. Resident companies include the Las Vegas Philharmonic and the Nevada Ballet Theatre. 

An initial challenge with an overly “hot” sound (as the stage manager termed it) and the reported lack of bass response have apparently led to some mixed and negative reviews of the Reynolds Hall acoustics. However, the extensive efforts required to assure that any new performance space is optimally “tuned” are still underway, and the acoustics are sure to be improved as that process nears completion. Additional information is available through Amber Stidham, Public Relations Manager, who graciously guided me on an extended tour in early April.  Amber can be reached at astidham@thesmithcenter.com.

Exterior Art Deco Building Detail

Smith Center as Viewed from from Symphony Park

Reynolds Hall Lobby

A young boy in Ollantaytambo peered down an alley as we passed

On Saturday, we visited Ollantaytambo, where we caught our train to Machu Picchu. This village name means resting place for a warrior and high above us on the mountainsides were terraces and garrisons where Incan warriors tried to stop the advance of the invading Spaniards.

We saw the Incan canals that ran beside most streets that carried fresh water from high in the Andes and offered sanitation 600 years ago. We also saw the small crosses and team of bulls that rest on many rooftops to show reverence for God and prosperity for the dwellers inside.

It was a beautiful morning and this village was busy in its role as a conduit for many travelers making their way to Machu Picchu, about an hour and a half away by train.

These dolls were an adornment in a home we entered in Ollantaytambo

Many homes are set off the street within ancient corridors

Sacred items within this home included mummified alpacas and skulls of ancestors

This fountain honors an Incan king in a city square of Cusco near our meeting site

I'm in Peru with Tourism Cares for a restoration project at Cusco's Mercado Central de San Pedro park, where we'll be removing grafitti, painting its walls and planting flowers in old flower beds long filled with trash. We're also visiting Machu Picchu, one of the world's most treasured archaeological sites that rests some 8,000 feet above sea level in this country's Andes Mountains.

This raucous welcome with costumed dancers was given to our group on Friday, May 4, prior to a day-long tourism summit with local officials, professors and dignitaries. Peru ranks very highly with affluent travelers in the United States and sends the second most visitors here after neighboring Chile.

Tourism Cares CEO Bruce Beckham brought a blue chip panel with him and asked USTOA President Terry Dale to moderate a discussion of how this country can continue to grow its American travel business. Industry leaders here are into serious long-range planning to deal with the sustainability issues that arise with an ancient site that draws so much visitation like Machu Picchu does. Several local professionals including Rogers Valencia Espinoza of Andean Lodges and Ruth Shady, an archaeologist who helped to discover Caral, the oldest city in the Americas, led a discussion of those plans and gained input from the American tour operators in attendance.

Costumed dancers entertained us as we entered the Cusco Convention Center

A band played for our delegation as we prepared for our day long meeting with local leaders in Cusco

The primary theme of Peruvian industry leaders today is sustainability of their sacred sites like Machu Picchu

Silver Dollar City's greatest treasure may be lie 300 feet below its surface.

Branson's pre-eminent theme park is best known for its rides, entertainment and 100 artisans who demonstrate Ozark Mountain crafts for visitors. But the park got its start because of Marvel Cave, a limestone cave that was first discovered by Osage Indians around 1500 A.D. In 1894, a local man bought the property that the cave is located on and opened it as a tourist attraction; he and his daughters continued to operate tours of the cave for the next 50 years. In 1950, the Herschend family leased the land built a few buildings around the opening to the cave. Their small development has grown into Silver Dollar City, an attraction that vastly overwhelms the popularity of Marvel Cave itself.

The presence of a theme park doesn't make Marvel Cave any less marvelous, though. Silver Dollar City admission tickets entitle visitors to free tours of the cave, which take around 40 minutes. I joined a cave tour during my day visiting the park, and was amazed by what I saw.

We descended into Marvel Cave on foot, slowly making our way down the more than 450 steps that lead to the bottom. The descent was slow and easy, though, and we were treated with spectacular views along the way. One of the most memorable sights is the Cathedral Room, a 200-foot-high cavern that is the largest entry point of any cave in North America. This huge room is spectaclar is scope, large enough to house the Statue of Liberty, and makes a wonderful introduction to the sights to come.

After walking across the floor of the Cathedral Room, we continued along a half-mile path that took us past spectacular rock formations and waterfalls. Many of the rock formations were created by the slow drip of water over thousands of years. They have been lit in dramatic fashion to help highlight the stunning beauty of this secret underground world.

At the end of the tour, we ascended just a few stairs, and then boarded an incline railway that took us the rest of the way up to the surface. Though thousands of visitors were having a great time above ground, I think those of us that took the time to tour this fantastic cave got the best experience of all.

Descending into the Cathedral Room

Marvel Cave's spectacular waterfall

The cave tour highlights otherworldly rock formations.

Unique geological features

My husband and I are in our early 30s and have a small child. We are not your normal group tour type, but we could be part of an untapped market. Most couples our age are working, raising a family and seriously strapped for time. Planning a long couples weekend or a family vacation can be difficult. I’m a member of a generation that says yes with a click of a button, and I’d rather not have a phone conversation.  So how do you find me?

I know you are going to roll your eyes, but it’s through social marketing.  Facebook, blogs, e-newsletters, digital editions, texting, tweets and so on are your most powerful resources. Yes, I’ve said, “I’m so over Facebook” before, but I still check it every day: when I’m stuck in traffic, waiting on the doctor, in line for coffee, pretending to watch a documentary with my husband — should I go on?

Maybe I’m not updating my personal status that much anymore, but I’m still looking, and if you’ve got something I like, I’ll click on your link. And isn’t getting someone to your site half the battle? And if you do not support mobile devices or do not have a professional-looking website, I will leave your site in a heartbeat. Sorry, but it’s true.

Now that you’ve found me, how do you sell me on a group tour? First, you need to remember who I am. You can’t sell me on a 14-day trip to Italy, no matter how amazing the price. I don’t have the time, period. Sell me on a four-day weekend, where I don’t mind asking the grandparents to watch the baby. Give me a seven-day family trip to Disneyland or the Smoky Mountains that is affordable and flexible, and watch me blast it out to all my friends, who will put their families on that trip, too.

Here are a couple of things to remember about this generation: We are looking at the cost just like everyone else, and we will compare prices online if we think we can do better. We may not go on a bus, but in 10 different SUVs or minivans.

Name badges — really? Most of us have been to all-inclusive resorts; we’ll do wristbands, but name badges — ugh. Give us options. We will spend money on spas, outdoor adventure and so on, all so we can post a picture online to impress our friends who didn’t go on the tour.

Oh, and I forgot the best part: We 30-year-olds have parents, parents who are in that sought-after group called boomers. Treat their kids right, and you just might end up selling that 14-day trip to Italy after all.