As part of the Rural Tour, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, and Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki, hosted a rural health community forum in Louisiana.

WHITEHOUSE: Around Town

Instead, Cooder functions as a renegade historian on a no-particular-hurry ambling tour through rural America.

NPR: Music's Renegade Historian in Rural America

Mr Latham gave a hint of the populist approach he plans for the election campaign by making a bus tour of rural constituencies in New South Wales during the first week of February and speaking to packed public meetings.

ECONOMIST: Labor is making a comeback

It's the difference between the idealised rural England (slivers of tour-bus Oxfordshire) and the real countryside of bungalow-sprawl, derelict factory units, impromptu rubbish tips in woodland glades, sinister hamburger-tossers in laybys, empurpled stand-offs over travellers' sites and local people who find themselves stranded by everyone from bus companies to banks.

BBC: News

The economic bus tour will also feature events in Iowa including a Rural Economic Forum in Peosta as well as events in western Illinois.

WHITEHOUSE: The White House

As part of his eight-state tour focusing on poverty, Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards is scheduled to stop in rural Kentucky, where writer and rural advocate Dee Davis has witnessed the visits of politicians in the past.

NPR: In Rural Poverty Fight, Showing Up Is a First Step

Stone has remained in rural Devon despite a constant stream of success - by 17 she had released two albums, completed a worldwide tour with 97 dates and was being hailed by some as "the white Aretha Franklin".

BBC: Devon offers pride and protection for soul singer Stone

Independent travellers can also contact a tour operator solely to purchase tickets, or reserve tickets through one of the many hotels that dot the rural Sacred Valley between the city of Cusco and the town of Aguas Calientes, the gateway town to Machu Picchu.

BBC: Securing tickets for Machu Picchu