TOKYO, Dec. 31 Kyodo

In the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States and the war in Afghanistan, many travelers are rethinking vacation plans for the year 2002.

But even with a global recession looming and nagging worries about safety still in the air, the travel bug, once caught, is almost impossible to cure with anything but yet another adventure.

With this in mind, Kyodo News correspondents from across the Asia-Pacific region offer a series of safe, scenic and historic suggestions for trips short or long throughout the region or just down the road and across the hills of their home country.

Photos attached to some travel feature stories are available via e-mail. Please call KWS editor 03-5573-8089.

The schedules are as follows:

---------- Nepal's grandiose mountains offer timeless appeal

KATHMANDU, Dec. 26 Kyodo - Slumping may be the kindest word for the current state of tourism in Nepal.

The Himalayan Kingdom received some 500,000 visitors in 2000, but in 2001 it has had to make do with less than half that number.

An ongoing communist insurgency rendered Nepal's countryside unsafe for many travelers, while a bloodbath in the Nepalese royal palace in June, in which the country's popular king Birendra was slain along with nine other royals, also kept potential visitors away.

---------- Climbing one of world's most dangerous, active volcanoes

MT. MERAPI, Indonesia, Dec. 27 Kyodo - It was 3:00 in the morning. All were still sleeping. But Christian Awuy woke us up, knocking on our room doors at his Vogels Hostel in the quiet highland resort of Kaliurang, near Yogyakarta.

''Wake up, guys! It's time to climb!'' he shouted.

Fifteen minutes later and our group of six -- two French lawyers, two New Zealand journalists, a Dutch student and myself -- was sitting in the hostel's dining room, listening to Awuy's short briefing about Mt. Merapi, one of the most active volcanoes in the world.

---------- Cambodia is a relaxing Buddhist getaway in a time of terror

PHNOM PENH, Dec. 27 Kyodo - The Buddhist southeast Asian nation of Cambodia is still attracting many visitors even though the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States have prompted many people to shy away from traveling overseas.

Fearful tourists are starting to get adventurous again and want ''to relax at a peaceful destination like Cambodia,'' said Sathol Miura, president of APEX travel agency.