I’ve rarely seen such a stunning city…like Istanbul meets San Francisco, with its pastel-colored buildings and the wide river running right under a Golden Gate look-alike and sweeping out to the ocean. My husband Tim and I were in Lisbon, Portugal, on the way to our rented house at the beach in Copa da Caparica. For $1,500 we were set up with a rental for a five-week stay living in this beach town just 15 minutes from the Portuguese capital.

San José (population: 300,000-plus, with more than a million in the metro area) had traffic, tall buildings, and noise. But after living in Escazú, a suburb just 10 minutes’ drive from downtown, for the past year, I’ve discovered another side to the city. It has the best shopping and dining in the country, including imported items found nowhere else and international cuisine.

Not so long ago, only sailors, soldiers and the super wealthy got to see the world. But today, globetrotting isn’t just a job for mariners or the preserve of the jet set. You can cruise to Europe for up to 70% off standard prices if you know how… you can use a host of websites to organize low-cost, luxurious accommodation for a few months—enough time to try a place on for size—before moving on to the next…

You’ve heard the economy is slow. You can see it for yourself just walking down main street. But one place you won’t find any sign of it is among the pages of luxury real estate listings. Floods of cheap money are working their way into the luxury real estate market at home and in world cities like London, Melbourne, Hong Kong and New York.

So what would the earliest antique have been? Adam’s discarded fig leaf? A sliver of gopher wood from Noah’s Ark? A stone chip off the tablet on which the Ten Commandments were carved? From cavemen trading mammoth tusks to children squabbling over the sale of Granny’s Meissen dinner service, the acquisition and disposal of ancient (and modern) artefacts has always interested folks.

By now, it’s old news that the American National Security Agency (NSA) is stealing, storing and searching nearly every email you send, every website you surf, and every telephone conversation you have. Revelations about a massive program of clandestine data collection in collaboration with Internet and email service providers have come thick and fast.

Canadian Andrew Blyth first came to León, Nicaragua, seven years ago to look after some properties his parents had purchased. The family had visited back in 2003 and fallen in love with the city. “Their eventual goal is to retire down here and open a bed and breakfast,” explains Andrew.

When David Hagerman went on business trips, he always kept a camera stashed in his briefcase. Early in the morning, well before his day’s round of meetings started, he would leave his hotel to take photos of local people and places, from women preparing bowls of noodles in busy street-side stalls to piles of brightly colored spices in bustling morning markets.

Awash in tales of smugglers and wreckers, Cornwall is a favorite with UK vacationers. A peninsula jutting into the Atlantic, its coastline of bays, inlets, cliffs, coves and golden beaches covers almost 300 miles. Inland, a maze of lanes leads to lost-in-time villages anchored by squat granite churches and complete with inns, beer gardens and home-made pub grub such as fish pie and steak-and-kidney pudding.

It's easy to see why people flock to Thailand for the ultimate in sea, sand, and sun. with miles of white-sand beaches, lush jungle, and crystal-blue waters, the kingdom’s southern islands are, for many, paradise on earth. whether you snorkel and swim the day away, explore hidden emerald bays by sea kayak, or simply lounge on your choice of palm-fringed beaches, you won’t be disappointed.