Travel questions that vacation specialists often hear

Though some may feel that their unanswered travel questions are unique to themselves, they actually reveal broader issues affecting a great many people. Here are some recent ones that I've received:

Q: My 17-year-old son will be studying abroad in France for one semester, and then hopes to travel by himself through Europe for at least a month, staying at youth hostels. Is that a safe way for him to go?

A: It's probably the safest way. The youth hostels of Europe have an excellent record of ethical and responsible service to young people. They try hard to provide them with clean and comfortable stays among other law-abiding youthful travelers, and I have rarely heard of any disturbing incidents in any such hostel; their staffs usually are idealists when it comes to the protecting them from danger. Consult HostelWorld.com or Hostels.com for typical examples of the lodgings and social settings available to your son.

Q: We were thinking of renting a car in Ireland for a completely informal tour of the country, but hear from some friends that it's difficult to drive in Ireland.

A: Your friends are worrywarts. Multitudes of Americans have enjoyed self-drive vacations in Ireland, and wouldn't dream of using any other method. They accustom themselves quickly to driving in a right-hand-drive car, and find that driving there is no more difficult than driving anywhere in the United States. And the rewards of living among the Irish, using bed-and-breakfasts for lodgings, visiting pubs for snacks and refreshments, meeting the most gregarious of all the world's people, are great.

Q: Is there any way that I can be up-to-date on currency exchange rates, gaining a sense of what the dollar is buying of foreign monies?

A: It's as easy as remembering two letters of the alphabet: "X" and "E." The website XE.com provides up-to-date currency exchange rates, and also gives you the history of each currency. You can learn its exchange rate one month ago, one year ago, 10 years ago, and so on. It's an absolutely definitive record of currency exchange rates.

Q: I'm going to Disney World with our 3-year-old. Any advice?

A: Don't. At the risk of seeming a curmudgeon, I am firmly opposed to visiting the Disney theme parks with a child that young. They will get very little out of the experience, they won't remember it and they'll be frightened by some of the costumed characters they encounter.

Parents with a child that young are really visiting Disney World for their own enjoyment, not the child's.

Q: To return to the United States from South Africa, we are thinking of booking a flight that makes a stop in Dakar, Senegal. Is that safe?

A: Most of the continent of Africa is totally safe unlike, say, Yemen or Somalia. Dakar, Senegal, is a large, sophisticated, cosmopolitan and heavily visited city whose airport is perfectly safe for a stop en route.

Q: We are a family group of 14 people taking a cruise to Bermuda. How can we be assured that we will all have a group of cabins together?

A: There's really no difficulty; you simply request of the cruise line that they assign cabins next to each other. But why do that? What advantage is it to have adjacent cabins? In my experience, family groups of numerous people enjoy the cruise more if they are left to spend the day as they please, each couple or couple with children doing what they wish. But everyone agrees to come together at dinnertime, occupying tables next to one another. This worked well on a family reunion cruise in the Mediterranean that I planned some time ago, and it's the best course, in my opinion, to follow.

Q: Which of the lines operating river cruises of Europe should we choose to book (and here they name several different lines).

A: The cruises operated by the leading river cruise companies are remarkably similar in their itineraries, schedules, port stops and excursions, cuisine and entertainment. Having witnessed a few, I couldn't discern any major difference. The dining level on the cheapest of them, for one example, is so high (European chefs, European specialties, champagne at breakfast, caviar on occasion) that I can't imagine what reason there is to book the pricier lines. While cabins will be larger on the more expensive cruises, and while meals will be even more refined, I nevertheless find that the touring experience – once you alight from the ship in the various cities where they stop – is so alike, as to make the choice between them unusually difficult. Choose the price level with which you are comfortable.