I still remember the feeling. It was my first-ever trip to Europe, way back in 1979, and I’d taken an overnight flight from San Francisco to London and had my passport stamped at customs at Heathrow Airport in London. I took a train to the city centre and then transferred on the Tube to the Russell Square station. I walked out and there it was. A red, British telephone box. Just like in the movies, I thought, with breathless wonder. And then I dropped in some coins and, like a good son, called my parents to let them know I’d Read more
Europe
What a great study. I mentioned on Twitter the other day how I found a study that compared the cost of club sandwiches and a mini-bottle of vodka at various hotels around the world. That was fun. But now comes a far more exhaustive study that looks around the world at everything from the cost of a Big Mac to the price of a man’s haircut, a standard beer, a cheap date and the cost of a five-star hotel room. It’s useful information if you can believe all of it. But I’ll get to that in a minute. In the Read more
Nobody will ever agree – ever – with anyone else’s list. That almost goes without saying. What you think are the top 10 wines in the world are almost certainly not mine. And I’ll never understand Academy Award or Grammy Award voters. So it’s probably not surprising that I take a bit of umbrage (and that I’m also dissatisfied) with CNN’s list of the top 100 beaches of the world. Before I launch a miniature rant, let me say I’m actually pretty happy with this list. I usually think of CNN as pretty U.S. focussed, but this is a very Read more
March Break is officially in our rear view mirror. Ditto for Easter. So it’s time to plan for your summer vacation then, right? If you’re looking for a trip to the U.S., you’re likely in for sticker shock at your nearest bank. The loonie is still hovering around 80 cents U.S., and I recently paid something like $130 Canadian for a hundred dollars in U.S. greenbacks. With that in mind, here are a few out-of-town spots you might not have thought about. AUCKLAND My nephew recently booked a flight from Toronto to Auckland, New Zealand for $1,600. That’s not cheap, Read more
Maybe it’s the booze. Or it’s the jet lag. Perhaps it’s that travel makes us feel free of our normal societal bounds. Whatever the reason, it seems a lot of us act like buffoons on the road – whipping off our clothes, carving our names into ancient relics and assuming ridiculous (or, worse, offensive) poses in sacred places – before posting our antics for all to see. It’s not even spring yet, and already the Internet is filled with examples of stupid people doing stupid things away from home in 2015. To recap just a few: • Two twentysomething American Read more
