Hong Kong’s Era of Change, New Year Fest

Witness the change of sovereignty from British to Chinese rule on July 1 in Hong Kong. The Claremont Institute is sponsoring a trip to Hong Kong on June 26 to July 3. Guests will attend meetings with officials and business leaders to discuss the changeover. Bruce Herschensohn, the author of “The Last Time I Saw Hong Kong,” will join the tour. There is time for sightseeing and shopping.

Cost: $4,065 per person, double occupancy, including round-trip air fare from Los Angeles, hotel accommodations for six nights, five breakfasts and two dinners, meetings and programs, and sightseeing. Contact: Michael Warder, the Claremont Institute, 250 W. 1st St. Suite 330, Claremont, CA 91711; telephone (909) 621-6825.

Hong Kong Fireworks

Celebrate the Chinese New Year in Hong Kong, Feb. 2 to 9. Participants will take a half-day Hong Kong Island tour, attend a parade on New Year’s Day, watch the grand fireworks display over Victoria Harbour and visit Asia’s largest shopping complex.

Cost: $1,328 per person, double occupancy, including round-trip air fare, airport transfers, hotel, daily American breakfast, one dinner and sightseeing. Contact: Raquel Yarno, Your Travel Center, 5652 Calle Real, Goleta, CA 93117; tel. (800) 874-8889.

Scary New Orleans

Discover New Orleans’ haunted heritage Jan. 6 to 12 on a tour that takes guests to ghostly houses, cemeteries and old plantations. Participants will visit sites depicted in Anne Rice’s vampire trilogy and the film locations of “Interview With a Vampire.”

Cost: $1,399 per person, double occupancy, including air fare from Los Angeles, hotels, some meals and tours. Contact: A Special Journey Travel, 660 Venice Blvd., Venice, CA 90291; tel. (800) 450-6813.

Costa Rica Retreat

San Francisco-based International Women’s Studies Institute will hold a program called Women at Mid-Life: Re-Creation, beginning Feb. 14 in Costa Rica. Participants will spend a week exploring health and women’s issues. An optional week of eco-travel, beginning Feb. 22, follows the program. Tours include a boat trip, snorkeling excursion and a visit to a national park. Guests stay at the Pine Tree Inn in Escazu, a suburb of San Jose.

Cost: $950 per person, double occupancy, including eight nights’ accommodations, transfers, field trip, an American breakfast and one group meal per day. Air fare is not included. Optional eco-tour is $950. Contact: International Women’s Studies Institute; tel. (415) 323-2013.

Canals of Wales

Travel by narrow boat on the canals in Wales on a trip that runs July 3 to 19. The trip’s focus is the International Eistedffod music competition held in Llangollen, Wales. The competition is an old Welsh tradition with performers from around the world. After landing in London, the trip begins in the 2,000-year-old walled city of Chester, England. Participants will attend an evensong choir service in a 10th century cathedral and a play on the cathedral green. After three days of sightseeing, the tour will leave by train to join the narrow boats in Wales. The boats carry a maximum of four people and offer armchairs, TV, showers, flush toilets and heating. Participants have the chance to visit ancient castles and monasteries along the way.

While cruising at a leisurely pace of 4 mph, members will navigate the Llangollen Canal and cross the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct 120 feet above the River Dee.

Cost: $2,300 per person, double occupancy, including air fare to London, ground transportation, accommodations, meals and festivals. Contact: Skipper Travel Services, 1500 41st Ave., Suite 8-B, Capitola, CA 95010; tel. (408) 462-5333.

Amazing Amazon

The tour company Explorations is offering trips this Christmas and New Year’s to Peru. The first trip departs Dec. 21. The eight-day Amazon Jungle Safari is escorted by biologist Robert Fernau. Participants will learn about natural history while staying overnight in jungle lodges and exploring the rain forest more than 100 feet up on the Treetop Canopy Walkway.

An extension to this trip, or taken separately, is an eight-day Andean Inca Exploration, which starts Dec. 28. This tour features an overnight at Machu Picchu, the Sacred Valley of the Inca and historic Cuzco, the ancient Inca capital and Spanish-colonial city.

Also available is a New Year’s adventure cruise on the Amazon River. Departing Dec. 28, the eight-day Amazon Jungle Cruise is escorted by biologist Dennis Thoney, curator at the New York Aquarium for Wildlife Conservation. The riverboat, the Arca, offers 16 air-conditioned cabins with private baths and exploration of remote regions of the upper Amazon River. Participants travel more than 650 miles on the Amazon River from Iquitos, Peru, to Tabatinga, Brazil, and back.

Cost: $2,295 (each trip) per person, double occupancy, including air fare from Los Angeles, accommodations, most meals and sightseeing. Contact: Charlie Strader at Explorations, 27655 Kent Road, Bonita Springs, FL 34135; tel. (800) 446-9660.

Study Safaris

Several 21-day safaris to the game parks of Kenya and Tanzania are available on various dates in January, June and July. The safari itineraries focus on the national parks and game reserves of Kenya and Tanzania, and they also offer an opportunity to see the great migration of wildlife in Kenya or Tanzania. The safaris will be led by a native of Kenya, Leonard Moite. Participants will visit Kenya’s Masai Mara, Samburu and Lake Nakuru national parks staying at the Treetops Lodge, Sweetwaters Tented Camp and Mt. Kenya Safari Club. The Tanzania tour program includes the game reserves of Tarangire, Lake Manyara, Ngorongoro Crater, Olduvai Gorge and the Serengeti plains. A six-day expedition to climb Africa’s highest mountain, Mt. Kilimanjaro (19,342 feet), may begin before or after each safari. Participants will be escorted by experienced guides and porters, and will spend four overnights in mountain huts. Previous experience in mountain climbing is not required, but good health, physical fitness and stamina are.

A three-night stay in Nairobi at the Norfolk Hotel will provide all safari participants the opportunity to meet Kenyans, visit the National Museum of Kenya, Giraffe Manor, the Karen Blixen Museum and the Kazuri (beads) shops. Also planned are visits to schools, African villages, markets, and coffee and tea plantations.

Cost: from $5,300 per person, double occupancy, including round-trip air fare to Nairobi, ground transportation, hotels, most meals, museum and park entrance fees. Contact: Kenya Study Safaris: 30037 Via Borica, Rancho Palos Verdes, CA 90275; tel. (310) 377-6790.

More Africa

From April 4 to 18, UCLA Extension is offering “Out of Africa: A Trip Through Human Evolutionary Time,” a 14-day archeological study tour to South Africa and Botswana tracing human evolution. South African archeologist Hilary John Deacon provides lectures throughout the tour, which includes visits to such sites as the Sterkfontein Caves west of Johannesburg. The itinerary also includes the Motloutse Ruins and the Mashatu Game Reserve in southern Botswana, the tribe-owned Mthethomusha Game Reserve and sites in Capetown.

Participants travel by open Land Rover to the Motloutse Ruins, an Iron Age site whose hunter-gatherer inhabitants were experts in gold smelting.

Then it’s on to the Mapungupwe archeological site, one of South Africa’s most important Iron and Stone Age sites. Participants then spend a day viewing game and exploring the Crocodile Mountains within Kruger National Park.

The tour ends with two nights at the Constantia Uitsig Hotel, a country house lodge in the foothills of Table Mountain in the heart of South Africa’s wine country, near Cape Town. Sightseeing includes the Cape Peninsula, a cable car journey up Table Mountain.

A trip orientation takes place Dec. 9, 7 to 9 p.m., at the UCLA Extension Building, 10995 LeConte Ave., Room 760, in Westwood.

Cost: $6,440 per person, double occupancy, including tuition, accommodations, most meals, entrance fees, land transportation and air transportation to and from New York. A special LAX-JFK fare of $200 is available to tour participants. Contact: Africa Tour, UCLA Extension, 10995 LeConte Ave., Suite 711, Los Angeles, CA 90024; tel. (310) 825-2272.

The Times is not responsible for changes in prices, dates or itineraries. These should be confirmed with travel agents or tour operators.