For those who want to get away from busy Seoul to a near island, Ganghwado is one of the ideal options. In two hours of drive west of Seoul, you can meet a beautiful beach, an exciting mud flat full of sea creatures, a quiet temple and a historical site of ancient defense facilities. The fourth-largest island in Korea has only one beach ― Dongmak Beach ― where the waters are quiet and shallow. A...

SANTA CRUZ, Galapagos Islands (AP) ― The sea lion nursed her pup under a prickly pear cactus while an iguana clumsily marched away. A tiny penguin waddled on a rock as red and orange crabs clung to the craggy surface below. Welcome to the Galapagos Islands, a volcanic archipelago that inspired Charles Darwin’s theories of evolution and natural selection after he landed here in 1835 on the HMS Be...

MACHU PICCHU, Peru ― At the top of the mountain, where an attendant will take your $46 ticket, foot traffic is steady and cellphone reception is excellent. At the bottom of the same mountain, the town teems with pizzerias, tourists chatter in half a dozen languages and a school band director is herding his traditionally costumed students into formation. “Roki! Roki!” he seems to be hollering. A...

PHOENIX (AP) ― From the sandhill crane to the red-faced warbler, rock stars of the birding world have spawned a tourism industry in Arizona that draws bird-watchers from around the world. “It’s one of the two or three best places in the United States to look for birds,” said David Pashley of the American Bird Conservancy. “Arizona makes a lot of money off of bird-watchers going down to the south...

What a nightmare! Whenever you see photographs of Thailand’s White Temple, which lies on the fringes of that tri-nation junction, the Golden Triangle, it looks luminously beautiful like the Taj Mahal. Now, however, the skies above the White Temple or Wat Rong Khun are dowdy and cloudy, and the landmark might better be described as “the grey temple”. Indeed, the washout weather raises the spectr...

TURIN, Italy (AFP) ― Winds of change are sweeping through the dusty palazzos and abandoned ruins of Italy ― as budget cuts in tough economic times force the managers of famous monuments to seek revenues and investment. The crumbling Colosseum is being restored by shoe tycoon Diego Della Valle, the ancient Roman city of Pompeii is looking for private funders and the august royal residence of Vena...