Pretty cool report the other day from hotels.com showed that Toronto is now the third most booked international city for U.S. travellers. The report, which analyzed bookings on hotels.com, found that U.S. travel types booked the most rooms in London, followed by Paris. Toronto was number three, moving ahead of Rome. Which is pretty cool. After Rome, in position five, was Vancouver, followed by Tokyo, Hong Kong, Montreal, Barcelona and Niagara Falls. It’s a not a definitive study in that it only takes into account bookings on one website. But it’s encouraging for Toronto and Canadian tourism types, I’d think… Read more
Caribbean
The other day I gave you some of my top travel bits from 2013. Here’s part two. Thanks again for reading! Most Canadian experience: Helping drive a team of sled dogs across a frozen lake outside Canmore, Alberta. Best Ontario Resort: The Lodge at Pine Cove, north of Parry Sound. Luxurious surroundings on a pristine stretch of the French River. Try a sunrise paddle with the mist rising off the water, or check out nearby waterfalls. Relaxation to the max. Prettiest sunrise: A glorious and clear start to the day in Santa Barbara, California, with the sun popping up over Read more
ANTIGUA – I didn’t find what I had hoped for in my shower. But I found a new, favourite hotel. I spent a few days on this lovely Caribbean island last week. The first few nights were at a very nice place called Sugar Ridge. The last night was one of the top places I’ve ever laid my head. And that includes a lot of incredible hotels, folks. The road to get to Hermitage Bay Resort is rather, um, unassuming; a bouncy dirt track with potholes big enough to hold a Smart Car or, as one local told me, big Read more
ANTIGUA – I was clearly out of my league. It was my second day in Antigua, and I was on a driving tour of the south side of the island. I’d heard something about a yacht show in Falmouth harbour, but wasn’t quite prepared for what I found. I pulled my Toyota SUV into a parking area and walked towards a gate leading to the main harbour, where I was confronted by around 100 gleaming, white, monstrous (mostly) charter yachts. I had stumbled on the annual Antigua charter yacht show, held here in part because of the incredibly zig-zaggy protected Read more
ANTIGUA – I can’t verify that there are 365 beaches on this island, one for every day of the year. The tourist board says it’s true, and tourist boards never inflate their numbers. Right? All I know is I took a five-hour drive around the south part of the island the other day and spotted a dozen or so of the spiffiest, most alluring stretches of sand I’ve seen in a long time. I had plans to see a good half or two-thirds of the island. But a worker at the lovely Sugar Ridge resort I’m staying at convinced me Read more
