Tomorrow (Aug. 8) marks three years since fires destroyed the small Maui city of Lahaina, and damaged other homes on the island. More than 100 people were killed in the tragedy, which wiped out almost all of the historic city, which was once capital of the kingdom of Hawaii. It’s a place I’ve visited at least 70 or 80 times over the 50-plus years I’ve been visiting the islands, and it’s a place I dearly loved. It’s been a very slow process to rebuild the city, but there have been signs of progress of late. The harbour reopened some months Read more
Copenhagen
Kudos to Iceland, the Netherlands, Australia and Canada. Great marks for Singapore, Honolulu and San Francisco. Travel insurance provider Berkshire Hathaway Travel Protection (BHTP) has released its 11th annual State of Travel Insurance Safest Destinations report, “the longest running and most trusted research project evaluating the attitudes of U.S. travelers toward travel safety and travel insurance.” The Netherlands, Australia, and Austria have been named the safest countries to visit in 2026, while Reykjavik, Copenhagen, and Zurich top the list of safest cities. Canada was named fifth safest country, which is down slightly from its third place finish last year. Montreal Read more
One of the world’s best beaches is getting bigger. Much bigger. I recently caught up with Brian Lowack, president and CEO of Visit St. Pete/Clearwater; one of the top destinations in Florida. He told me a beach renewal project that stretches from Sand Key on Clearwater Beach to St. Pete Beach will add 2.5 million cubic yards of sand, with roughly 200 feet of width. “It’s already great, but it’s going to be the most beautiful beach in Florida,” he told me in Toronto, where Visit St. Pete/Clearwater hosted media and travel agents at a Blue Jays-Yankees game. The cost Read more
The people who run the Global Liveability Index have come out with an exhaustive ranking of world cities. The top ten list is dominated by Europe and Australia, but Canada placed four cities in the top 20, which is nothing to sneeze at. According to Time Out, The Global Liveability Index rated more than 170 world cities based on five major factors. They are stability (such as the threat of conflict or prevalence of petty crime); healthcare (availability of over-the-counter drugs, quality of public healthcare); culture and environment (temperatures, levels of censorship); education (availability and quality of private education) and Read more
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
