HUNTINGTON BEACH, CALIFORNIA – Fantastic restaurants. Beaches that stretch on just shy of forever. A great, walkable downtown. Amazing chocolates. A great harbor tour. And a luxurious, family-friendly resort. I grew up in California and spend a good deal of time there. But somehow I’d never spent a night in Huntington Beach until last month. My flight from Toronto to LAX was delayed eight hours, so I pretty much had only one day. But I got a pretty good idea how you could make a great visit work, so here’s my experience. WHERE TO STAY I was able to spend Read more
luxury hotels
I love a hotel that provides a real sense of occasion. The Ritz Carlton San Francisco does that in spades. The minute you pull up to the front doors you’ll be thoroughly impressed by the architecture. The hotel occupies a brilliant, white, neo-classical building on Nob Hill that was built in 1909 as the Pacific Coast headquarters of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. It’s got character galore, including magnificent columns that march across the front of the building and tremendous detail in every corner and facade, not to mention nook and cranny. But that’s just the exterior. The lobby is Read more
Ocean Hotels Group, the family-owned collection of Barbados hotels and resorts, celebrates the opening of O2 Beach Club & Spa, a new five-star all-inclusive luxury boutique resort located in St Lawrence Gap on the South Coast of Barbados. After months of transforming the previous Ocean Two Resort & Residences and expanding the property with 42 new oceanview and oceanfront suites, the new resort has been aptly named “O2” as a nod to the symbol of oxygen, the element as natural and life essential as the act of breathing. The O2 Beach Club & Spa has 130 luxurious rooms and suites Read more
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
MAUI, HAWAII – I’ve spent more time on the Lahaina-Kaanapali side of Maui over the years. But the Fairmont Kea Lani resort in Wailea might convince me to try that side of Maui more often. I spent a couple of nights at the property last month and came away hugely impressed. Not to sound all uppity or anything, but I see a lot of gorgeous hotels in my line of work and a lot of places with four or five or supposedly six stars leave me a little flat. Not this place. Not by a long shot. It’s beautiful, sure. Read more
