Tours and cruises in Latin America, Yosemite

MEXICO

Art’s home bases

Drop in at the homes of private art collectors, a Mexico City art dealer, one of the country’s top architects and the homes and studios of contemporary artists on an 11-day interior-design and architecture tour. Visitors will have the chance to see works by Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo and others at the Dolores Olmedo Patiño Museum; have breakfast at the House of Tiles in the Centro Histórico, the city’s historic district, with mansions dating to the 16th and 17th centuries; have lunch at the Club de Industriales, with spaces designed and furnished by top local interior designers and architects; and visit Mexico City’s Museo de Arte Popular, housed in an Art Deco structure. In Guanajuato, the tour stops at the studio of a potter who makes Talavera and Majolica ceramics. At the home of a painter in San Miguel de Allende, visitors will tour his garden, patterned after Monet’s Giverny in France. .

Info: Jean Grimm Mexican Art & Culture Tours, Tempe, Ariz.; (888) 783-1331, www.mexicanarttours.com.

Date: Aug. 29 to Sept. 8.

Itinerary: Mexico City, Querétaro, San Miguel de Allende and Guanajuato.

Price: $2,695 per person, double occupancy (single supplement $600), includes bilingual guide, accommodations, some meals, transfers, ground transportation, fees to museums and events. Round-trip airfare from Los Angeles is not included.

NEW HAMPSHIRE

Exercise-rest cycle

Travel on two wheels along the back roads of New Hampshire, cycling from one small inn to the next on a four-day tour. Cyclists will take a spin around Lake Sunapee and take in views of Mt. Kearsarge. Rolling terrain provides easy to moderate riding, with a daily cycling time of two to four hours. Inns include a six-room farmhouse, a Victorian with river views and a hilltop inn with fireplaces and Jacuzzi tubs for two.

Info:www.granitestatevacations.com or individual inns: Blue Acorn Inn, (603) 863-1144; Henniker House B&B, (866) 428-3198; Highland Lake Inn, (603) 735-6426; and the Rosewood Country Inn, (800) 938-5273.

Dates: July 6 to 10, Aug. 3 to 7, Sept. 21 to 25, and Oct. 19 to 23.

Itinerary: Sunapee, N.H., region.

Price: $550 per person, double occupancy (single supplement $125), includes four nights’ accommodations, daily breakfast, lunch and dinner, guide, shuttle to move luggage from inn to inn. Does not include airfare to New Hampshire.

PERU

Daily life, Inca style

Learn a bit about what made the ancient Incas tick during a UCLA Extension study tour to sacred sites of Peru’s Inca Empire. The tour takes visitors to the Temple of the Sun in Cuzco, the salt mines of Maras and hiking along a scenic trail to the Sacred Valley of the Incas. They’ll see Ollantaytambo, called the best surviving example of an Inca town, where the street plan is the original laid out by Inca builders. A guided sightseeing tour of Lima stops in at Lima’s cathedral, the Government Palace and other landmarks. And tour-goers can mark Machu Picchu off their to-visit list. The tour will take in the ruin’s temples, fountains, terraced hillsides and more. The tour is accompanied by mythologist and educator Lollie Ragana, who has taught courses on landscape architecture at UCLA Extension. Ragana will talk about sacred and environmental aspects of the sites.

Info: (310) 825-9414, e-mail landscapearchitecture @uclaextension.edu.

Date: Aug. 21 to 31.

Itinerary: Lima, Cuzco, Chincheros, Yucay, Machu Picchu, Pisac.

Price: $2,890 per person, double occupancy (single supplement $390), includes accommodations, internal flights, most meals. The price doesn’t include a course fee of $310 or round-trip airfare to Peru.

YOSEMITE

Walks in the park

Pretend you’re 11 again. It’s summer-camp redux on a trip to Yosemite that includes fresh air and plenty of exercise. Participants bunk down in rustic dorms at Yosemite Institute. At least two hikes are offered daily, easy or strenuous, into the backcountry of Yosemite. Nighttime programs provide information on local wildlife, natural history and more. Buses cart visitors to trails, where they trek to panoramic canyon and valley overlooks, taking in views of waterfalls, granite domes, mountain peaks and more.

Info: Knapsack Tours, Walnut Creek, Calif.; (925) 944-9435, www.knapsacktours.com.

Date: Aug. 10 to 15.

Price: $995 per person, includes all meals, transportation to trails, educational programs, naturalist-led hikes, rustic accommodations with flush toilets and hot showers. Does not include transportation to Yosemite National Park.

itinerary@latimes.com