A rebound will come some day. But I think it will take quite a long time before travel is back to normal. Given what’s been happening with social or physical distancing, we’re not going to flick a switch on July 1 (or whenever) and go back to crowded airports and jam-packed airplanes. Some things will simply have to change. Writing in the Globe and Mail recently, esteemed urbanist Richard Florida talked about new ways being needed to run airport check-in counters, baggage carousels and airlines themselves. Further to that, Delta Airlines today issued a statement saying that, starting April 13 Read more

PELEE ISLAND, LAKE ERIE – I’ve only been in the Anchor and Wheel Inn restaurant for two minutes and I’m already in love. There are pirate flags and colourful, wooden fish and bright orange buoys hanging on the walls. There’s reggae music and Jimmy Buffett tunes floating over the speakers. Owner and head chef Mark Emrich walks by and I compliment him on the décor and the music. “Welcome to the Canadian Keys,” he says with a grin. Emrich loads my plate with two huge pieces of blackened pickerel, as well as steamed green beans done just right and a Read more

Since most of us aren’t travelling these days, for obvious reasons, I’m re-posting some former blogs. I reached back into the vault for this one from 2013 in the Australian Outback. Stay safe, everyone. AYERS ROCK/ULURU, Australia – Wow. I expected a few people would be in the parking lot at Uluru to watch the sun go down. I didn’t expect a Lambeau Field/Green Bay Packers NFL tailgate party. But that’s what I got. I’m staying at a wonderful resort called Longitude 131, which overlooks Uluru or Ayers Rock from a few miles away. They said they’d take us to Read more

Since we can’t travel much these days, I’m re-posting some prior blogs. This is from a great visit to New York City last year. BROOKLYN – “The view down here is nice, but I’m going to show a place almost nobody knows about.” Sheli Baez is escorting my wife and I around Brooklyn on a New York Times Journeys visit; a program based on the newspaper’s popular “36 Hours In” travel section stories, where readers are given a guide for the perfect day and-a-half in great destinations around the world. The New York Times Journeys are run by Urban Adventures, Read more

Business travel may never be the same again. With programs or apps such as Slack and Zoom literally taking off (I had my first Zoom chat ever on Saturday, linking up eight family members in Toronto with five in California, including my 88-year-old father), how long will it take for businesses to decide that long-distance travel isn’t as necessary as it used to be? There will always be a place for in-person meetings. But with webinars and virtual reality and Slack and Zoom and FaceTime and Skype and other services out there, folks are beginning to realize that we really Read more

My wife and I have been blessed with wonderful travel experiences. We’ve taken trips to Australia, as well as Ireland, Hawaii and Hong Kong. We’ve somehow landed penthouse suites at luxurious New York City hotels and enjoyed palatial hotel rooms in Paris. But I’ve never seen the kind of look on her face that I did when we walked along the elevated pathway that took us to our thatched roof, overwater bungalow at the Four Seasons Bora Bora. Incredulous is probably the best word to describe it, a slack-jawed, wide-eyed and utterly bedazzled look that workers here are probably used Read more