Last week I published my Jimmy Awards for best food and drinks in the abbreviated travel year of 2021. Today I focus on hotels, events, attractions, riding in 60-year-old cars, the joy of COVID tests, and great parks I never knew about. Best train experience: The Rocky Mountaineer ride from Kamloops B.C. to Banff. Truly one of the world’s great train experiences, with luxurious, glass-roof coaches and excellent food and wine. Best hotel makeover: They spent $30 million refurbishing the Sheraton Gateway Hotel at Toronto Pearson Airport, and it shows. The lobby and rooms are sleek and stylish, and there’s Read more
U.S.A.
Flair Airlines, a Canadian ultra-low-cost airline, continues its rapid growth with the announcement today that it intends to lease 14 additional Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft. The ultra low-cost carrier’s fleet will grow to 30 aircraft by mid-2023. The Edmonton-based airline has 12 aircraft in service and will have 20 aircraft in service by summer 2022. Additional aircraft will arrive in 2023 as Flair more than doubles its current fleet size as part of the airline’s vision to have a fleet of 50 aircraft by 2025. “We’re on a mission to deliver low fares to Canadians and flying a state-of-the-art Read more
I knew something was wrong. But I didn’t expect this. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the U.S. this week moved France and Portugal to level four, the highest risk category on its travel health notices website page. As of Tuesday, the CDC travel site lists France and Portugal in level four, which indicates a “very high” level of COVID-19. The other three levels used by the CDC are “high,” “moderate,” and “low.” The Canadian government travel advisory site has four categories, “avoid all travel, ” “avoid non-essential travel,” “exercise a high degree of caution,” and “exercise normal Read more
Toronto has a great new downtown attraction, and I’m giving away two pairs of free tickets. DETAILS BELOW. Little Canada is an amazing, miniature re-creation of several regions of the country. Toronto’s newest big attraction, Little Canada, has opened its doors at long last; giants and little ones alike can satisfy their wanderlust by visiting Canada’s striking landscapes and intricate landmarks by simply heading to downtown Toronto. The highly detailed and immersive miniature attraction offers spectacular scenery, enveloping soundscapes, animated features, and moving cars, trains, and boats that all operate on a 15-minute day cycle; upon sunset thousands of tiny Read more
Nearly six in ten Americans are fully vaccinated against COVID-19. But which states have the highest rates? As it turns out, some of the states Canadians love to visit the most are doing the best in terms of vaccinations and other COVID-related stats. WalletHub compared the 50 states and the District of Columbia across five key metrics; including rates of COVID-19 transmission, positive testing, hospitalizations and death, as well as the share of the eligible population getting vaccinated. Topping the charts was the District of Columbia, with a five-metric score of 91.30, followed by Connecticut at 86.64 and Rhode Island Read more
