All of us travelers need useful websites to click on - the modern equivalent of a travel research library, only much more up to the minute. From which airport terminal does your plane take off? Do you need a visa, or will a passport do? What's your money worth when you land in a country where the money looks nothing like your own?

The Maldives is one of the world's great tourist pamperers. But since the tsunami, most of the travelers are not coming back.

It's safe to say that unless you are a diver, the Maldives didn't cross your mind, at least until Dec. 26, when the little nation of about 1,200 islands was smacked by the tsunami that ran over parts of southeast Asia.