The worst appears to be over for southern Ontario, but frigid temperatures and strong winds are still limiting travel for many. Roads are treacherous, and VIA Rail also is having trouble with trains in the Windsor-Quebec City corridor. CP24 reports passengers on a train heading from Ottawa to Toronto have been stuck on board a stalled train car for 17 hours. Airports appear to be recovering in Ontario and Quebec as the snow dissipates. “The last several days have been very challenging for the airlines and they’ve been proactively cancelling and delaying flights,” said Tori Gass, a spokesperson for Toronto Read more
Buffalo
An historic “weather bomb” is making a mockery of airline schedules and ruining holiday plans for travelers across North America. With snow starting to build in some cities and fierce winds bringing record-low temperatures to many parts of the U.S., FlightAware reports 4,700 U.S. flight cancellations as of 1 p.m. Eastern Time. The website showed 35% of all outbound flights have been cancelled at New York’s LaGuardia Airport, while Detroit had a 43% cancellation rate and Seattle 46%. Chicago O’Hare was showing 23% of flights cancelled. Cleveland and Buffalo were much worse. Cleveland was showing a 70% cancellation rate, while Read more
A major winter storm and the biggest snowfall in some time is wreaking havoc with air travel in Eastern Canada and the Northeast United States today. Toronto Pearson stats show that, as of 5 p.m. Eastern Time, 75.98% of the 333 scheduled departures had been cancelled, while 72.83% of 346 arrivals were cancelled. Toronto was hit with nearly two feet of snow Sunday night and into Monday afternoon, and heavy winds were making things that much tougher Monday afternoon. FlightAware.com was showing that 48% of flights were cancelled at Ottawa’s international airport as of 5 p.m., while Montreal-Trudeau was at Read more
This is part II of my annual Jimmy Awards for best travel experiences of the year, ranging from great pasta at the Fairmont Pacific Rim in Vancouver to an incredible wine cellar in the Bahamas and an amazing (and surprising) guitar player on the Queen Mary 2. Thanks to everyone that helped along the way! BEST SAILING TRIP: A sunset cruise with the folks at the Santa Barbara Sailing Center in California. I love Santa Barbara, but this was my first time on a sailboat in the region. They do a great job, and we had a stunning sunset. If Read more
BUFFALO, N.Y. – Grain silos turned into a zipline course. Gardening as a competitive sport. And an abundance of glorious architecture. There’s a travel cliché that gets kicked around a lot, where someone says, “If you haven’t been to Destination X in three years, you haven’t been to Destination X.” With apologies to the cliché police, it wouldn’t be a stretch to use that kind of phrase about Buffalo. I was in town a few years ago to have a look at the improving waterfront and other areas of this surprising city. I went back early last week for another Read more
