Floating Markets and Fireworks in Thailand

Travelers can ring in the new millennium on an eight-day adventure to Bangkok and Chiang Mai, Thailand.

Participants will leave Los Angeles Dec. 26 and fly to Bangkok to visit the Grand Palace, the Temple of the Emerald Buddha and the Temple of Dawn. Guests can view daily life along the Chao Phraya River on an early morning boat tour to the Floating Market. From Chiang Mai, members will visit villages to see lacquerware, Thai silk and paper umbrellas. The tour includes visits to hill tribes with cultural presentations. New Year’s Eve celebrations will take place at the Dusit Thani Hotel overlooking Bangkok, with a feast, dancing, a show and fireworks at midnight.

Cost: $2,395 per person, double occupancy, including air fare from Los Angeles, air transportation within Thailand, hotels, American breakfast daily plus three dinners, all transfers and sightseeing fees.

Contact: Ilene Koenig, Let’s Travel, 711 Montana Ave., Suite A, Santa Monica, CA 90403; telephone (310) 451-5805 or (800) 45-TRIPS.

England: Literature

Novel Expeditions brings the books of England’s finest writers to life on a 10-day tour to the towns and countryside of Thomas Hardy, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Samuel Johnson and others. Participants on this literary journey will visit such sites as the house in London where Johnson wrote one of the first English dictionaries; the quaint thatch-roofed cottage where Hardy wrote many of his most famous works; a replica of Shakespeare’s 16th century Globe Theater in London; and Poet’s Corner at Westminster Abbey, where many literary giants are buried.

Travelers will also visit the towns, homes and landscapes that inspired the writers. Guests will see Stonehenge, Bath, Salisbury and King Arthur’s Cadbury Castle. Dates for 2000: March 25 to April 3, April 29 to May 8, June 10 to 19, Sept. 23 to Oct. 2, and Oct. 7 to 16.

Cost: $2,395 per person, double occupancy, including accommodations, all breakfasts and five dinners, sightseeing and entrance fees, guides and ground transportation. Air fare to England is not included.

Contact: Novel Expeditions, 140 Tunstead Ave., San Anselmo, CA 94960; tel. (800) 820-8485.

Spain: Culture

A tour called “Treasures of Spain” is planned for May 15 to 27 with Spanish professor and author Maricarmen Ohara. The itinerary includes Madrid, Avila, Toledo, Salamanca, Granada, Seville, Carmona, Cordoba and Barcelona, with special emphasis on visiting Spain’s most celebrated museums (El Prado, Picasso) and places of cultural and artistic interest. The group will be staying at paradores and hotels, such as the luxury Alfonso XIII in Seville, the Castellanos Palace in Salamanca, the Velada Palace in Avila and the San Francisco Palace in Granada.

Cost: $2,997 per person, double occupancy, including hotels, daily breakfast, many lunches and dinners and ground transportation. Air fare to Spain is extra.

Contact: Maricarmen Ohara, 336 N. Ashwood, Ventura, CA 93003; tel. (805) 642-3969.

Mexico: Cruise

A 10-day cruise is planned aboard the 620-passenger Stella Solaris, which will ply the waters of the Caribbean starting from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., March 13 to 23. Guests will see Mayan monuments, temples and the “sun serpent” at Chichen Itza. Ports of call are Honduras, Guatemala, Belize, Cozumel and Playa del Carmen.

Professors and lecturers in astronomy, archeology, celestial belief systems and celestial photography phenomena will be on board, including former astronaut M. Scott Carpenter and Tom Bopp of Hale Bopp comet fame.

Cost: from $1,370 per person, double occupancy. Port charges and air fare are extra.

Contact: Joanna Matos of Stevenson Travel, 10900 Los Alamitos Blvd., Suite 115, Los Alamitos, CA; tel. (562) 598-2424.

Southwest: Navajos

Aventura Artistica is hosting a tour-seminar through the Navajo Nation lands Oct. 27 to 31. Participants will have a uniquely intimate opportunity to explore Navajo artistic and folkloric traditions, as well as examine the history of Navajo healing and religious ceremonies.

The autumn excursion will feature the seasonal changes throughout New Mexico, Arizona and Utah. Park rangers and Navajo guides will provide commentary through Canyon de Chelly, Monument Valley and other sites.

The tour starts in Albuquerque, N.M., with a visit to a museum of Native American history before departing for Arizona. Monuments and parks in Arizona and Utah, the Hubbell Trading Post, a private hogan, a Navajo college’s silver and weaving exhibition, a visit with a jeweler at Zuni Pueblo, two mission churches and the Acoma Pueblo are also scheduled.

Cost: $850 per person, double occupancy, including land transportation, lodging, all meals except breakfast and entrance fees. Air fare to Albuquerque is extra.

Contact: Aventura Artistica; tel. (800) 808-7352.

Italy: Sicily

A 16-day tour, “Art and Archeological Treasures of Sicily and Southern Italy,” leaves Jan. 8, 2000, to the Mediterranean and Sicily, a center of Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Arab, Norman and Spanish interaction. Barry Powell, a professor of classics at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, will lead this annual tour and give lectures providing the historical, archeological and artistic background of sites visited.

The itinerary starts in Palermo and continues on to Cefalu, with its Norman cathedral and mosaics, then on to the major Greek sites of Segesta, Selinus, Agrigento and Syracuse. Also visited are Catania, Taormina, Messina and the Roman imperial villa at Casale near Piazza Armerina.

After crossing the Strait of Messina, participants will explore the Doric Greek temples of Paestum, the excavated Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum and the well-preserved Roman villa of Oplontis. They will also travel through Sorrento and Naples and then to Rome.

Cost: $2,980 per person, double occupancy, including air fare from Los Angeles, ground transportation, first-class hotels, daily breakfast, nine dinners and all sightseeing and admission fees.

Contact: University Educational Travel; tel. (800) 525-0525, Internet https://www.uet.com.

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