Traveler's Advisory

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North America
Quebec City
Illusionist David Blaine, who recently spent 60 hours encased in a block of ice in New York City, obviously hadn't heard about Ice Hotel Quebec. Instead of standing bolt upright in Times Square with barely enough room to shiver, he could have kicked up his heels in spacious, ice-columned halls, drunk vodka at the ice bar, taken dog-sled rides in the surrounding snow, and bedded down on a pile of deer pelts. The 11-room hotel (a scaled-down version of the one at Jukkasjrvi, Sweden) opens this month in Montmorency Falls Park, just outside Quebec City. If you plan to visit, book soon: it will start melting away in March, not to be rebuilt until next winter. See .

Australia
Sydney
Thanks to the camera, the 20th century was the most visible in history. Using boxy Brownies or exquisite Leicas, amateur and professional image stalkers trapped billions of moments on film, and their finest trophies dominate our memories of the century's key people and events. "World Without End," at the Art Gallery of New South Wales until Feb. 25, explores "the imaginative hold that photographs have exercised on both artist and audience" through works by such champion shutterbugs as Diane Arbus, Eugne Atget, Max Dupain, Walker Evans, Frank Hurley, Alfred Stieglitz and Weegee. See .

Africa
Egypt
The pyramids on the Giza plateau, near Cairo, were built to withstand blazing sun and sandpaper winds. Tourists bring a different kind of assault-by auto exhaust, graffiti, tramping feet, and breath, which corrodes the royal tombs' limestone walls. To ensure the three pyramids survive their fifth millennium, the Egyptian government will fence them off from climbers and strictly police a 300-a-day limit on visitors to the Great Pyramid. At the same time, facilities at the site will be improved: by year's end there will be (at a safe distance from the tombs) a car park, a picnic area and a new visitors' center. Those averse to camel rides will be offered tours in electric cars.

Asia
Hong Kong
Hong Kong shot from barren island to mercantile anthill so fast that it hardly had time to reflect on the process. The former British colony's 1999 resorption into China provided a chance to take stock. One result: the newly opened Heritage Museum, in Sha Tin, New Territories, where residents are likely to find as many surprises as visitors will. Opening exhibitions look at banqueting customs, comic books and humor, Cantonese opera, and the tiny territory's (literally) highest priority: housing. See .