Bride's Guide interviews Patricia Schultz:

Oh, the Places You'll Go!

Whether you're an experienced voyager or your honeymoon is your first big trip, start your travel planning with '1,000 Places To See Before You Die'

And thank goodness author Patricia Schultz has checked these places out. Now the pesky task and resulting anxieties of choosing some exotic honeymoon locale has been done by a 50-year-old travel writer who has been voyaging her whole life. Oh no, Schultz had sense enough to eschew the strictures of the 9-to-5 workaday world a long time ago when she set off for Italy just after college graduation.

From Las Vegas and the Natchez Trail to the wonders of Machu Picchu and Kenya's wildlife preserves, Schultz explains what travelers have to gain from visiting these places to determining whether they're the type of places that fit your travel personality.

She covers the wonders of every continent with enough information to fill your days from the honeymoon until you choose a place to retire, if that's the sort of thing you want to do.

Sure, you thinking, where's the money for all the exotic traveling? Some package deals are surprisingly reasonable, you just have to work all the angles. Some fares are cheaper purchased way in advance; others are cheaper if you get them at the last minute. Group travel offers some benefits; and hotels offer "secret" deals. If all this sounds exhausting, just think of it as shopping for a new winter or spring wardrobe: You won't be denied that discount, and the search for it becomes quite a fun challenge.

Catching up with Schultz recently while she was caring for an ailing family member, she shares a few of her travel insights in the following Q & A.

How does traveling enrich one's life experience?

"In countless ways that staying immersed in what is familiar and comfortable back home never could. Whether you are at a stage where you bring the kids along or are traveling solo, traveling is both education and enjoyment.

"Go for the sheer pleasure of a gorgeous beach in Thailand, for the ultimate R&R for the work weary. Or trek through the Andes and return with an appreciation for its ancient culture and beauty; or go back to Italy for a return visit and sign up for a cooking course or wine tour and expand your talents and knowledge and make new friends from around the world who share your talents?

You wrote of indulging your wanderlust just after you graduated from college when you made a grand tour of Italy and other places: You're 50 now, so how has traveling changed since then?

"I traveled alone as much then as now, though perhaps with a greater degree of awareness and caution now. But I always set off with an open mind and feeling of great adventure. I am more inclined now to balance the must-do sites with the little known and untrammeled. If I was more hesitant to talk to strangers then, I make it a point to now, even with limited language skills. I took countless rolls of photos before; now I travel with a little used camera. I try to capture things in my head and make the effort to not just look at them but to see them."

What are some of the other sensory experiences you've had while traveling?

"I make it a point of noticing and identifying smells, fresh cut hay, the smell of incense mixed with flowers left at a temple, the aroma of basis and olive oil, when I realized these were some of my most vivid memories of certain places years later."

Many have heard about French snootiness, especially for people who don't speak their language; manners-wise, are people about the same level of rudeness or politeness around the world?

"I find people generally bursting with good intentions. It is not unusual to have someone walk blocks out of their way to guide me to my destination personally, all the while recounting things about their city or life (or cousin they have living in Brooklyn) or asking me questions about my home."

What should a couple know about their travel style before embarking upon any of the adventures recounted in your book? (I.e., In many places bargaining is how shopping is done; begging is imminently acceptable.) "

Follow your shared passion. Is it culture or history? Food? Nature? Music? Does the beach-and-palm tree scenario bore you day after day? Do cities excide you or intimidate you? Do you swoon at the strain of Italian opera, or do TV travelogues of the African bush hold you spellbound? Let your day-to-day interests help determine your choice of your next trip's destination.

But go beyond the predictable: If you love wine, Burgundy and Chianti are not your only options. Think: Chile, Australia, South Africa.

"Understand and be realistic about both the hardships and rewards of traveling in developing nations where the graciousness of the local people can sometimes be hard to see through poverty and social conditions foreign to most travelers. Not everyone will enjoy Calcutta or Madagascar."

How do you judge whether a trip is successful?

"If I can still conjure up the smells and sounds months later. Or if I've come home with at least one new friend. I'm still in contact with a wonderful couple I met in Kashmir in 1988, and my Yugoslavian landlady in Florence where I rented an apartment for the summer of 1975.

"And especially if I have retained one interesting piece of information. For example, I never knew young Thai girls had their teeth filed in a coming-of-age ceremony the way American girls wear braces. Or that there really is a Tasmanian Devil (not Errol Flynn) who lives, where else, on the island of Tasmania off the southern coast of Australia.

What are your top five trips in your book?

"My most recent ones: Peru and Machu Picchu; The Greenbrier in West Virginia; Namibia and South Africa; New York's Hudson Valley; and Italy's Amalfi Coast.

What are your top five all-time faves?

"My five perennial favorites I'd go back to in a heartbeat are:

1. Just about anywhere in Italy.
2. Thailand, for the graciousness and inherent loveliness of its people. And the food!
3. The Himalayas for its stunning physical beauty that will take your breath away in every sense of the word.
4. Paris because it is so quintessentially French but offset by a foray into the countryside to confirm just how little Paris truly represents the rest of the country.
5. Africa's safari experience. I discovered it only recently and for a gal from Midtown Manhattan, it is the ultimate eye-opener to the magnificence of the planet's animal kingdom.