Top Destinations for Budget Travelers + Great Hotels for Baseball Fans + Cool Hotels in Canada + Best New Hotels in the World

Some fun items for today’s post, including some interesting lists of great destinations for budget travelers, top hotels for baseball fans, the coolest hotels in Canada, and great new hotels around the world, and a look at the most inviting towns in California. Let’s get to it.

TOP DESTINATIONS FOR BUDGET TRAVELERS

 

Here’s an informative item I found about places where your dollar (be it American or Canadian) will go farther. Given the ravages of inflation, that’s an important topic for just about everyone these days. This list comes from the Deseret News in Salt Lake City, Utah, and illustrates 10 world destinations where you don’t have to spend a fortune to have a good time. I don’t know all of them, but I did find Cape Town to be reasonably priced when I visited a few years ago, and Portugal has remained a constant good deal over the years. Ditto for Vietnam. I’d add Bogota, Colombia to the list, for sure. It’s a very cool city and quite reasonably priced. Here’s an item I published on my blog last year.

Here’s the Deseret News top 10, and here’s the full story.

Paphos, Cyprus

Marmaris, Turkey

Kuta, Bali, Indonesia

Sunny Beach, Bulgaria

Sharm-el-Sheikh, Egyptt

Algarve, Portugal

Tokyo, Japan (usually not on a cheap travel list, so this is interesting)

Mombasa, Kenya

Cape Town, South Africa

Hoi An, Vietnam

TOP HOTELS FOR BASEBALL FANS

 

As a former baseball beat writer for the Toronto Star, this definitely caught my interest; a story about cool perks and saving money on a great baseball trip. 

BALTIMORE: Hilton Baltimore Inner Harbor 

BOSTON: Hotel Commonwealth

SAN FRANCISCO: Hyatt Regency

TORONTO: Toronto Marriott City Centre

ST. LOUIS: Live! By Loews 

When I covered the Blue Jays we would stay at a Marriott in the inner harbor area of Baltimore. I don’t know the Hilton, but the inner harbor is just steps from Oriole Park at Camden Yards stadium, and it’s a lively area with good food and water views.

I’ve stayed at the Toronto Marriott City Centre, and it’s a blast to be in a room overlooking the field; something you can’t do at these other properties.

For San Francisco, if you can afford it I’d suggest the stunning LUMA Hotel, a new and superbly stylish spot with a great rooftop bar. It’s only two blocks from the Giants’ stadium, the tremendous Oracle Park.

COOLEST HOTELS IN CANADA

 

I also really like this piece, as it covers a lot of ground and includes the truly spectacular Fogo Island Inn and the super cool Hotel de Glace (Ice Hotel) in Quebec. If you ask my opinion, and you rudely did not, I would add in Dawson City Yukon, which is housed in a former brothel, the iconic Fairmont Banff Springs in Alberta and Nellie’s Landing in Prince Edward Island, where you can sleep in a large wine barrel lashed to a floating dock.

FOGO ISLAND INN, NEWFOUNDLAND & LABRADOR

FREE SPIRIT SPHERES, BRITISH COLUMBIA

ROCKY MOUNTAIN HOUSE NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE, ALBERTA

HOTEL DE GLACE, QUEBEC 

AROUND THE SEA ROTATING HOUSE, PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND (A cool place I stayed in several years ago. It actually does rotate!)

THE TUNDRA BUGGY LODGE, MANITOBA

RIDGEBACK LODGE, NEW BRUNSWICK

QUIRPON LIGHTHOUSE INN, NEWFOUNDLAND & LABRADOR

HOTEL ZED, TOFINO, BRITISH COLUMBIA

SAINTLO OTTAWA JAIL HOSPITAL, ONTARIO

 

THE BEST NEW HOTELS IN THE WORLD

Esquire Magazine has a fine piece about the 41 best new hotels on the planet. I won’t list them all here as I might run out of ink. But I will note a few of the entries, including: The Lafayette in San Diego; Dillon Beach Resort in Sonoma County, California; The Tampa Edition in Tampa, Florida; Kona Village A Rosewood Resort on Hawaii Big Island; The St. Regis, Chicago; Maison Hudson, New York City; The Dorchester, London, England; Maison Delano, Paris, France; and Maroma Belmond on the Riviera Maya in Mexico.

MOST INVITING TOWNS OF CALIFORNIA

As a California native, I always enjoy seeing posts about my home state. This is a nice list of inviting (as opposed to uninviting/hostile/stay the hell out) towns in the Golden State. I note with pleasure that the author included Capitola, my fave town in the state and one that’s only a 10-minute drive from our family cabin. I was there just this week, actually, and enjoyed a bit of time near the beach and a nice Thai dinner at a restaurant called Sawasdee. We also spent an afternoon in Carmel, taking the remarkably beautiful (and free) drive along Scenic Road and enjoying a fine sushi and tempura lunch on the patio at Toro restaurant. This is a good list, but I’ll add a couple more fine places: Danville (the Tri-Valley area, just east of San Francisco), Carlsbad (just north of San Diego) and Los Olivos (just inland from Santa Barbara). Okay two more: I love Calistoga in the Napa Valley, and also Tiburon in the San Francisco Bay Area (a short drive from Sausalito).

MENDOCINO

CARMEL-BY-THE-SEA

SAUSALITO

MINERAL KING

LAGUNA BEACH

CAPITOLA

ARCATA

OAK GLEN

PLACERVILLE

 

NEW AIRLINE ROUTES TO AND FROM (AND INSIDE) CANADA

A couple new routes to keep in mind for Canadians, or people wanting to visit Canada. WestJet says it will begin flights from St. John’s, Newfoundland to London, England (Gatwick) on May 1, with three weekly flights through to October of this year. … Air Canada has resumed daily flights between Toronto and Tel Aviv, Israel … Flair Airlines has unveiled its fall and winter 2024 schedule, introducing a new Toronto to Guadalajara nonstop route starting Sept. 13, 2024 … Porter Airlines began direct, daily flights between Montreal and Vancouver on their new Embraer jets