Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
camp is reached by the public bus
marked
VOSS
-
GUNVANGEN
.
HOME STAYS Friendship Force,
34 Peachtree St. NW, Suite 900,
Atlanta, GA 30303 (
&
404/522-
9490;
www.friendshipforce.org), is a
nonprofit organization that encour-
ages friendship among people world-
wide. Dozens of branch offices
throughout North America arrange
visits, usually once a year. Because of
group bookings, the airfare to the host
country is usually less than the cost of
individual APEX tickets. Each partici-
pant spends 2 weeks in the host coun-
try, one as a guest in the home of a
family and the second traveling in the
host country.
Servas,
11 St. John St., Suite 505,
New York, NY 10038 (
&
212/267-
0252;
www.usservas.org), is an inter-
national nonprofit, nongovernmental,
interfaith network of travelers and
hosts whose goal is to help promote
world peace, goodwill, and under-
standing. (Its name means “to serve”
in Esperanto.) Servas hosts offer trav-
elers hospitality for 2 days. Travelers
pay an $85 annual fee and a $25 list
deposit after filling out an application
and being approved by an interviewer
(interviewers are located across the
U.S.). They then receive Servas direc-
tories listing the names and addresses
of Servas hosts.
HOME EXCHANGES
One of the
most exciting breakthroughs in mod-
ern tourism is the home exchange.
Sometimes the family automobile is
included. Of course, you must be
comfortable with the idea of having
strangers in your home, and you must
be content to spend your vacation in
one place.
Home exchanges cut costs. You
don't pay hotel bills, and you can also
save money by shopping in markets
and eating in. One potential problem,
though, is that you may not get a
home in the area you request.
Intervac USA,
30 Corte San Fer-
nando, Tiburon, CA 94920 (
&
800/
756-HOME;
www.intervacus.com),
is part of the largest worldwide
exchange network. It publishes four
catalogs a year, containing more than
10,000 homes in more than 36 coun-
tries. Members contact each other
directly. The cost is $65 plus postage,
which includes the purchase of three
of the company's catalogs (which will
be mailed to you), plus the inclusion
of your own listing in whichever one
of the three catalogs you select. If you
want to publish a photograph of your
home, there is an additional charge of
$11. Depending on your type of
membership, fees begin at $87, going
up to $148.
The Invented City
(
&
415/846-
7588;
www.invented-city.com) pub-
lishes home-exchange listings three
times a year. For the $50 membership
fee, you can list your home with your
own written descriptive summary.
Home Link,
P.O. Box 47747,
Tampa, FL 33647 (
&
800/638-3841
or 813/975-9825; www.homelink.
org), will send you five directories a
year—in one of which you're listed—
for $115.
15 Recommended Reading
HISTORY & MYTHOLOGY
The
Vikings,
by Johannes Brøndsted (Pen-
guin), is one of the most enjoyable
and best-written documents about the
age of the Vikings.
Quisling: A Study in Treason,
by
Oddvar K. Hoidal (Oxford University
Press), studies the world's most
famous traitor, Quisling, who was exe-
cuted by the Norwegians for running
the Nazi puppet government there.
Viking fans will not put down
The
Vinland Sagas: The Norse Discovery of
America,
translated by Magnus Mag-
nusson and Hermann Palsson (Pen-
guin), an incredible saga detailing how
