Hungry Canadians should head for Halifax if they want to save. A new study by hotels.com and hotels.ca looked at the price of a days’ worth of food at hotels around the world and came up with some fun findings. In the past they looked at the cost of a club sandwich on the road, which I always enjoyed (the study, I mean, not the sandwich. Although a good club sandwich is a wonderful thing as long as you leave out the lettuce, mayo and tomato and skip the extra layer of bread). Now they’ve taken it further and figured Read more
I’m utterly astonished. It was one thing for a bunch of young Canadians on holidays in Malaysia to peel off their clothes and take selfies on a mountain that locals consider sacred. And it was another thing for some goofball Canadian in Florence to pee on the beautiful monument known as Il Duomo the other day, after complaining there weren’t enough washrooms around. Those are just people being stupid and hurting themselves. But now I see reports on how the Mounties, authorities at Vancouver International Airport and others are seeking a crackdown on folks who point lasers at aircraft. I Read more
The “gallumph” sound of water bouncing off ancient rock covered in pretty patterns of moss and lichen. The way the sun gleams on the surface of a shimmering lake. A solitary pine tree, bent with the wind and eking out a living on a rocky islet. Not to mention great food, golf, sunset boat excursions, shopping, swimming, lake tours on the Segwun or Wenonah steamships, friends, quiet hikes, diving loons and old wooden boats varnished to a glossy sheen. Come summer, there’s no place on earth I’d rather be than Muskoka. I’m lucky enough to have three good friends with Read more
Most everyone who goes to Europe wants to see London and the Louvre. Not to mention Rome. But there are so many great places to go that aren’t quite as obvious. So here are five of my favourite cities and countries you should check out on your next European trip. VALENCIA A very under-rated city, I think. You’ll find a huge beach fronted by lovely cafés serving all kinds of great seafood, including paella; a favourite in this part of Spain. I love the beach, but I think the city centre is even nice. Here you’ll find one of architect Read more
I wrote this blog for the Toronto Star last year after a nice visit to Buffalo. From what I hear, things have improved even more since I was last in town… BUFFALO, NEW YORK – Mea Culpa. For years, as I recall, the head of media/public relations for Buffalo Tourism had been bugging me to come on down and check things out. I envisioned cool architecture and chicken wings and a nice Frank Lloyd Wright building Ihad heard about. I covered the Buffalo Bills off and on for the Star’s sports section in the early 2000’s, but I didn’t have 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 gotten to the point, I think, where you could call this an epidemic. The latest example comes from Malaysia, where the government has kept two Canadian women from leaving the country following Read more
With the stroke of a pen, or, rather, with the stroke of a bunch of ballot votes in favour of legalizing gay marriage, Ireland has suddenly jumped into the thick of the worldwide travel conversation. Not only does the country look good by most of the world’s standards in terms of embracing different cultures, it stands to benefit greatly from a tourism standpoint. I don’t know how large the LGBT tourism business is worldwide, but if guesstimates are right that 10 per cent of the world counts itself as gay or transgendered or what have you, then it’s big. Very Read more
