TONGARIKI, EASTER ISLAND – The hour of 7 a.m. is still a nasty rumour. To the east, in a distant sky, the sun is rising over a deserted Pacific Ocean. I’m carefully making my way through a thick field of grass wedged with bits of lava rock, my iPhone flashlight helping point the way in the pre-dawn darkness. Horses that appear to come from a nearby ranch nibble noiselessly in the black morning. I get too close to what looks like a chestnut-coloured colt and it bounds skittishly to its mother a few metres away. The horses aren’t aware of Read more
Easter Island
Yesterday I handed out my Jimmy Awards for my best/favourite spots of 2015 in Canada and the U.S. Today, it’s the turn for the rest of the world. Again, thanks to everyone for reading. And Happy New Year! BEST OVERALL MOMENT: I might live another 60 years and not do better than watching the sun come up behind ancient stone Moai statues on Easter Island. Truly the most wondrous place I’ve ever been in my life. COOLEST CITY DISCOVERY: Georgetown, Malaysia. Colonial buildings, old fishing villages on piers and funky, urban art combine to make this one of the world’s Read more
I’m constantly getting scrunched up faces from people at cocktail parties or dinners. I shower a lot and try to get to the laundry when I can, so it’s not that. No, what surprises some folks is that not even travel writers and former newspaper travel editors get to go everywhere they want. When I tell folks all the places that are still on m to-do list (Portugal, Poland, pretty much all of Africa, all of Central America and definitely all of South America) they look at me like I’m a little crazy. Some of it I can explain. Some Read more
