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
U.S.A.
The annual Trip Advisor Best Beaches List is out again, and there’s plenty to like. For the world, Trip Advisor users named Baia de Sancho on the idyllic island of Fernando de Noronha in Brazil as the top beach, followed by Eagle Beach in Aruba and Cable Beach in Broome, Western Australia. I haven’t made it to Cable Beach, but I can tell you that beaches in Western Australia are some of the best – and least crowded – in the world. In world voting, Grace Bay in the Turks and Caicos was fifth, Varadero Beach in Cuba ninth and Read more
Kudos to Canada. And a nod to Hawai’i, as well. A study by Berkshire Hathaway Travel Protection has anointed Canada as the safest country on the planet for 2024. Montreal came second in the world for safe cities, beaten only by Honolulu. Berkshire Hathaway nalyzed the responses of 1,702 travelers who were polled between August 24 and September 13, 2023, along with third-party data sources to evaluate concerns such as terrorism, weather emergencies, health measures, and the safety of underrepresented groups. The Berkshire Hathaway rankings also take into account data and information sourced from the U.S. State Department, The Economist, Read more
Pedestrians are getting a permanent break in Banff. Hawaii Tourism Boasts Strong Holiday Numbers. And indigenous tourism is poised for a Canadian boom. A few travel tidbits for today. BANFF PED ZONE NOW PERMANENT Banff’s popular downtown pedestrian zone is now a permanent feature in the wildly popular Alberta destination. Town officials have decided to keep the zone in place from the May long weekend to Thanksgiving weekend every year. Canadian Press reports the town decided to permanently fund the project, which began during the COVID-19 pandemic, as part of its annual operating budget. “It is, however, still unclear whether Read more
The U.S. Travel Association has released a study that found the United States ranks 17th out of 18 top travel markets in terms of global competitiveness. Decades of underinvestment and a lack of focus and coordination from federal policymakers caused the U.S. to fall behind, while other countries actively apply robust strategies to increase travel and grow economic output, the study suggests. The study gave the U.S. a 47% score, placing 17th out of 18 countries. Only China was worse. Canada ranked fifth in the report with 59%. Finishing on top of the list was the UK (72%), followed by France, Read more
