BUFFALO, N.Y. – Grain silos turned into a zipline course. Gardening as a competitive sport. And an abundance of glorious architecture. There’s a travel cliché that gets kicked around a lot, where someone says, “If you haven’t been to Destination X in three years, you haven’t been to Destination X.” With apologies to the cliché police, it wouldn’t be a stretch to use that kind of phrase about Buffalo. I was in town a few years ago to have a look at the improving waterfront and other areas of this surprising city. I went back early last week for another Read more

**This is a post written by me on behalf of IHG Hotels. All opinions are my own. Many Canadians like you and me either have or plan to draw up a bucket list of great places to travel. But a study by IHG (InterContinental Hotels Group) finds that almost nine in ten of us feel we’ll never make our dreams come true. With that in mind, IHG has partnered with an old friend of mine, Canadian author/travel writer Robin Esrock, to create a Great Canadian Bucket List that offers 25 unique experiences to inspire travel through this great country of Read more

It’s easy to forget how lucky we are in Toronto. I live a few miles north of Lake Ontario and often weeks go by without my seeing one of the world’s largest lakes. And then I get down there on a perfect night in late spring and admire the light on the water and the brilliant white sailboats bobbing along and the feeling of sun on my face, and I look at the shoreline and say to myself, “I wish I owned a place right over there.” That’s probably not going to happen, and I’m probably never going to own Read more

A meal that’s as good as any five-star restaurant you’ll find. Comfortable, lie-flat seats with fine French champagne. And a brand new, plush BMW to whisk you to an exclusive suite at Pearson. The folks at Air Canada recently gave a few lucky members of the media a test run of their new Signature Service, which began on Friday for select customers on select flights. If you’re a customer who can afford it or a business person who needs some extra sleep and enjoys a fine meal and being treated like royalty, or if you’re a travel agent booking a Read more

Finding a great meal or that perfect airport shop just got even easier for Canadians. Apple Maps airport feature, which allows users to see amazingly detailed plans of multiple levels of airports all over the world, now includes great mapping features at both Montreal/Trudeau (YUL) and Quebec City/Lesage (YQB). Those are both hugely popular airports for Canadians, especially with the summer travel season pretty much upon us. The maps previously were available at Toronto Pearson (YYZ), Vancouver (YVR) and Edmonton (YEG). The Apple Maps app allows users to browse hundreds of shops, restaurants, or restrooms located within the airport or Read more

**This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of BMO Insurance. All opinions are my own. It was the last full day of my visit to Dubai a few years ago. I was writing a travel story on Dubai for the Toronto Star, where I was the travel editor. I’d had breakfast at a fine, luxury hotel and was heading out to tour some of the old city, check out the markets and have a drink with a friend who was living in the UAE. I had no reason to expect anything would go wrong. But sometime in Read more