This is a re-post of a story I wrote for Postmedia in 2016. Anguilla has a new social media campaign, using the hashtags #AnguillafromAfar and #DreamingofAnguilla. ANGUILLA – Justin Bieber was spotted here over Christmas one year, and there are some very chi-chi resorts. But Anguilla also offers low-key, fantastic activities that are easy on the wallet. Here’s a mix of things to do that can fit a variety of budgets. FOR MUSIC LOVERS I’d only been on the island for an hour when I stumbled onto Elodia’s Beach Bar, on long, sweeping Shoal Bay East. A band called Took Read more
April 2020
TONGARIKI, EASTER ISLAND – The hour of 7 a.m. is still a nasty rumour. To the east, in a distant sky, the sun is rising over a deserted Pacific Ocean. I’m carefully making my way through a thick field of grass wedged with bits of lava rock, my iPhone flashlight helping point the way in the pre-dawn darkness. Horses that appear to come from a nearby ranch nibble noiselessly in the black morning. I get too close to what looks like a chestnut-coloured colt and it bounds skittishly to its mother a few metres away. The horses aren’t aware of Read more
Canada has, on occasion, been laughed at for being a tad on safe and conservative side of the tourism ledger. Given the climate we’re living in and the COVID-19 crisis, “safe” might be the best thing we have going for us, tourism consultant Greg Klassen says. Speaking on Hotelier Magazine’s Checking In podcast with host Rosanna Caira, Klassen said he worked for more than a decade at Destination Canada, selling the country to potential visitors. “We were always fighting this notion of Canada as a safe place,” said Klassen, a partner at Twenty31 consulting in Vancouver. “But people were going Read more
With travel at something of a standstill, I’m re-posting some prior blogs of mine. This one focuses on some marvellous, lesser-known places to explore in my home city. TORONTO – I walk up a flight of stairs and emerge into a wonderland. Swirling, intricately carved arches of brilliant white stone dance around my head. Soft blue lighting infuses the room with a deep glow, then turns green and yellow and soft orange. The light seeps around corners and plays onto brilliant white pillars that rise towards a series of equally stunning ceiling panels. I’m not a religious person, but the Read more
It was a lovely, warm day on Molokai’s Kalauapapa peninsula last July, and I was getting a tour of the area from local resident Rick Schonely. Schonely, a musician and high school sports coach, is one of several Molokai residents who gives tours of the peninsula, an infamous spot where leprosy victims were exiled for decades, living in a state of quarantine that makes what we’re going through child’s play. The peninsula is now a U.S. National Historic Park, and you can only visit if you have a permit. It’s a very sad place, where people lived far from their Read more
