As a long-time (50 years this year, wow) journalist, I do occasionally consider the dark side of things. When I see a list of the safest cities in the world to visit, for example, I always wonder who finished at the bottom. That isn’t very nice, I suppose. But I guess it’s human nature. With that in mind, I was delighted to see that a recent study of the most welcoming countries in the world was followed up with a list (from a different source) of the LEAST welcoming nations in Europe. It it may not be very scientific, and Read more
Europe
If you’re looking for a warm welcome when you travel abroad, book a trip to Italy. If you’re staying in Canada this year, think about visiting Whistler. Booking.com has announced the recipients of its 12th annual Traveller Review Awards, which are based on more than 309 million verified customer reviews. A record 1.48 million travel partners are receiving a Booking.com Traveller Review Award for 2024. Most Welcoming Places in the World For the seventh year in a row, Italy is home to the largest number of Booking.com Traveller Award recipients with 181,012. Here is the complete list of Read more
It’s almost Valentine’s Day, and that means it’s time for romance. The folks at Ubuy.com looked at TripAdvisor data to score each European capital city for romance. The criteria included the number of fine dining restaurants, 5-star hotels, and romantic tours. A romantic tour only gets one point, which I don’t understand. I also would put more emphasis on a five-star hotel than an expensive restaurant, if only because you’re likely to have more time to enjoy a hotel than a restaurant. It’s a tad arbitrary, and it doesn’t take the look or feel of a city into account. But Read more
A little bit of this and a little bit of that today. SAFEST EUROPEAN CITIES A story at InsiderMonkey.com lists the safest cities in the world, which is an important topic any time but seemingly more so now given global events. Using data from the Global Peace Index, they assigned cities with a safety score. In this, the lower the number the more safe the city is deemed to be. Here’s the top 25 in descending order 25. Vilnius, Lithuania, 1.671 24. Rome, 1.662 23. Bucharest, 1.649 23. Madrid, 1.649 21. Sofia, 1.643 20. Warsaw, 1.634 19. Stockholm, 1.625 (very Read more
You can set your watch by it. Every time an Olympic Games year rolls around, out come the stories about over-priced tickets and soaring hotel prices. I was the main Olympics reporter for the Toronto Star for 15 years or so, and I’ve seen it happen time and time again, from Vancouver to Athens and Sydney to Salt Lake City. Now it’s Paris’s turn to take the brunt of the criticism. The New York Times reports that tickets for the Opening Ceremonies, which will feature a flotilla of barges carrying athletes down the River Seine to the foot of the Read more
