A look at where Canadians want to go for domestic trips this year, as well as surprising destinations for foreign visitors to Canada. Today’s post also looks at where to see the Northern Lights and how young people are looking for “roamance” on the road. CANADIAN HOT SPOTS FOR 2024: Moncton, Windsor, Vancouver and Richmond Hill? 2023 was, by many reports, considered the “return to travel”, with tourism reaching nearly 90% of pre-pandemic levels*. With travel showing no signs of slowing down, Canadians are eager to explore their own country, and far beyond, this year. Without further ado, here are Read more
Japan
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
Kudos to Canada. And a nod to Hawai’i, as well. A study by Berkshire Hathaway Travel Protection has anointed Canada as the safest country on the planet for 2024. Montreal came second in the world for safe cities, beaten only by Honolulu. Berkshire Hathaway nalyzed the responses of 1,702 travelers who were polled between August 24 and September 13, 2023, along with third-party data sources to evaluate concerns such as terrorism, weather emergencies, health measures, and the safety of underrepresented groups. The Berkshire Hathaway rankings also take into account data and information sourced from the U.S. State Department, The Economist, Read more
Portugal is seeing a tourism boom, but Hawaii is slow to recover from pre-pandemic numbers. I also have a look at the best travel reward credit cards, the top places for women over 50 to travel this year, and most iconic foods from countries around the world. PORTUGAL TOURISM SPIRALS UPWARD Portugal brought in more money than ever before from tourism in 2023, and the country’s tourism boom shows no signs of slowing down. Tourism revenue increased to more than $36.5 billion CAD in 2023 compared to $30.8 billion the previous year, Secretary of State for Tourism, Read more
A new study by photo wall art creator StoryBoards revealed that Italy is the most popular destination for a Christmas trip for Americans. The study analyzed travel-related keywords such as “flights”, “restaurants”, “ski facilities”, and more next to 43 popular vacation destinations to discover where Americans are interested in spending their holidays the most. Italy takes the crown with almost 93,000 average searches from September to December 2023. One of the most popular destinations for Americans all year long, Italy can be especially magical during the winter months and Christmas, with markets scattered around the country, as well as offering Read more
