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ST. PETERSBURG, Russia The ruble’s weak. The warnings about a complicated visa process were wrong, at least with a travel agency’s help.

Deep-sea diving, zip-lining and surfing are well-known draws for tourists in Costa Rica, but another kind of soft-adventure option is gaining traction in this Central American country: rural tourism.

Win one of four trips to Anaheim

It was in Yale that miners bound for the Cariboo gold fields stepped off the river steamers and began their overland trek, by Barnard’s Express coach if they had the money, on foot if they did not.

Most days, in most ways, this park’s Upper Geyser Basin is a geothermal outlaw biker beach party — belching and splashing at all hours, with a sulfuric whiff of menace riding the breeze.

Iceland is an enchanting, otherworldly, volcanic island nation far out in the north Atlantic.

Rotaries. Lobstah rolls. Beaches. Widows’ walks. Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket are the popular kids of summer vacation. The Obamas just stayed two weeks on trendy Martha’s Vineyard.

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia It was the realization of a dream from a childhood obsessed with trains: taking one of the world’s longest train rides, on the Trans Mongolian Express and Trans Siberian Railway.

At Mount Rinjani’s peak, 3,726 metres above the ocean that rings the Indonesian island of Lombok, the sun rose to create a perfect prism-shaped shadow on the crater lake below, with golden light spilling over the edges.

Most North Americans choose Prague as their first foray into Eastern Europe, but the true powerhouse of the region is Budapest, capital of Hungary.