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OAT places great importance on the philosophy of Learning and Discovery which OAT takes very seriously -- and our guide, Hussien, even more so -- which elevated an already enticing itinerary to a far more immersive travel experience. Hussien, whose Ph. D. in Egyptology made him astoundingly knowledgeable and whose sense of humor, abundantly entertaining, and whose honesty left no controversial question unanswered and no subject off the table.

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At dawn, Marilyn had covered 22 of the 52 kilometres. She did not know it but she had already eclipsed Chadwick, who had become violently ill in the choppy water. When Marilyn became numb Ryder took out a black board and wrote on it "FLO IS OUT." Marilyn's best friend Joan Cooke shouted encouragement from the boat and Marilyn started swimming again.

I was about to begin a magical journey through 6000 years of history. And then accept the hard truth. How do you recapture 6000 years of history in 1200 words, the social media-inspired limited attention span requirement that travel editors now impose on their writers? Usually my articles weave a story; this one's not going to. I think all I can do is let you experience a little bit of Egypt the way I did.

After much speculation, it was determined that his discovery was none other than Machu Picchu ("old mountain" in Quechua, the ancient language of the Incas), and regarded as the estate of the Inca emperor Pachacuti. The location was chosen as a religious center due to its position in the mountains and its alignment with key astronomical elements important to the Incas. Still clouded in historical mystery, the inhabitants of Machu Picchu inhabited a vertical world, and their city is considered one of the planet's most beautiful ancient sites. Today it is one of the seven modern wonders of the world.

For centuries, artists and aristocrats, divas and dictators, poets and politicos, why even James Bond himself, have fallen under the spell of alpine breezes, the scent of lemon blossoms and the mesmerizing shades-of-blue of Italy's largest lake, Lago di Garda. Straddling three distinct regions: Veneto, Lombardy and Trentino-Alto Adige, this ladle-shaped body of water beckons travelers to experience the Italian dolce far niente (the sweetness of doing nothing).

Most of us have been on a cruise, riverboat and barge; some good, some bad, and generally a bit of overeating. We've asked the members of the T-Boy Society of Film, Music & Travel what were some of their cherished moments, or lack of, when cruising the world's water ways.

It was a quiet afternoon on Raratonga, in the Cook Islands, when Lydia Nga heard the news. With the stroke of a pen, her homeland, 15 scattered islets west of Tahiti, a country smaller than Detroit, had grown exponentially, reborn as a 690,000 square-mile nation. But it wasn't the islands that grew. In 1982, the Third United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea ruled that coastal nations had jurisdiction over their own "exclusive economic zone," defined as 200 miles of the ocean floor, measured from the shore.

Since my visit to Asturias, Spain, last October, I’ve been dreaming about a rustic chicken dish I was served there. I was visiting for the natural paradise that is Asturias, with hiking, climbing, horseback riding, kayaking, even coal mining on my itinerary. But all that exercise led me to explore the fantastic kitchens of the region too.