QUESTION: My 14-year-old daughter and I will be in Anchorage soon for a three-day weekend. What should we see?
ANSWER: Be assured of one thing: you will find plenty of things to fill your time. Downtown Anchorage alone has some 24 points of interests, from a 10-mile-long paved bike, ski and walking trail called the Tony Knowles Coastal Trail.
You might enjoy the Imaginarium, a hands-on science center. There is also the Reeve Aviation Picture Museum and the Wolf Song of Alaska, an exhibition about the wolf and its relationship to humans. Pick up a visitors' guide at the Visitor Information Center, at Fourth Avenue and F Street, or have one mailed by calling (907) 276-4118.
QUESTION: I am planning a trip to Panama City by public transportation. I will go from New York to the Mexican border by Greyhound and would appreciate any information about buses from the border to Mexico City and then to Panama City.
ANSWER: The trip from New York to the border and then to Mexico City should be fairly straightforward.
The trip through Chiapas and Central America, however, will be of an entirely different character. You can expect to travel on slow, narrow, mountainous roads, and once across the Guatemalan border with Mexico, bus quality will be a hit-and-miss thing.
Mexico City to Tuxtla Gutierrez, Chiapas. Take the A.D.O. bus line (Autobuses de Oriente) at the Tapo bus station next to the San Lazaro subway stop.
Tuxtla Gutierrez to Tapachula, Chiapas. Cristobal Colon buses leave every hour on the half hour between 6:30 a.m. and 6:30 p.m. Tapachula to El Carmen (also known as Talisman), Guatemala. Cristobal Colon buses or numerous small commuter buses called micros leave at 1:30 p.m. or 2:30 p.m. El Carmen to Guatemala City. Galgos buses leave El Carmen at 12:30, 5, 8:30 and 10:30 a.m. Guatemala City to San Salvador, El Salvador. Melba buses leave every hour on the half hour between 4:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. San Salvador to Managua, Nicaragua. Tica buses leave at 7:30 a.m. and 4 p.m. Managua to San Jose, Costa Rica. Tica buses leave at 7:30 a.m., and 5 p.m. San Jose to Panama. Tica buses leave at 10 a.m. and 4 p.m.
Total bus time: 71.5 hours. Total cost: $83.65.