This was originally published in 2018. I’m back in San Antonio for a U.S. Travel Association meeting and thought I’d re-post this blog, with a bit of added information. SAN ANTONIO – Judith Ely is showing me around the San Antonio Museum of Art, a surprising spot with treasured art from around the world. She points to a mosaic on the floor in the ancient Italian/Greek section of the museum. “Look at this one,” she says. “It’s a rendering of an Italian wedding but there’s a lot of shenanigans going on. People are having sex and disrupting things. But then Read more
Texas
U.S. cities cleaned up in the latest ranking of the world’s top 100 urban places. New York City scored highest, with a number three ranking for the world. Los Angeles was 12th and San Francisco 14th, while San Diego finished in the 32nd spot and San Jose 74th. Texas has three cities in the top 50: Houston (42), Austin (43) and Dallas (47), while Florida has two (Orlando at 40 and Miami at 52). Resonance Consultancy has been tracking world cities for years. They rank them on many factors, including culture, restaurants and shopping and also look at user-generated reviews Read more
So, this is interesting. A new study called the Tourism Sentiment Index has looked at the “most loved” destinations around the world, and it’s not at all what you might expect. Richmond, British Columbia was the top Canadian destination listed, coming 34th overall. Mississauga, Ontario was 42nd in the world and finished second in Canada. The company, which is based in Vancouver, said its findings were “drawn from more than 1.6 billion online conversations and content pieces publicly available about 21,330 global destinations.” “Our work with destinations is amassing a continuously expanding dataset within Tourism Sentiment Index,” the group said Read more
A new listing of the top cities in the U.S. gives a boost to NYC and to several California cities. I also take a look at tourism in Nova Scotia and the re-opening of a fabulous hotel in the Caribbean. My Aug. 5 Future of Travel blog. Top 20 Cities in the U.S. The Big Apple takes top prize. But California has plenty to boast about. A company called Resonance Consultancy has once again published its list of the top cities in the U.S. They used six categories for ranking American cities: place, product, people, prosperity, program and promotion. The Read more
LUCKENBACH, TEXAS – Sometimes we travel writers research a destination too much. Then we get there and find it’s nice. But not as great as we had hoped. That wasn’t the case on my recent visit to Luckenbach, Texas. Hell, I didn’t know the place was a legend. I don’t have any Willie Nelson records, but I did buy a Waylon Jennings album long ago and I’m a big fan of Dwight Yoakam and cross-over country/rock artists like CCR and Linda Ronstadt. And I love the soothing soulful sound of a slide guitar. Still, I didn’t quite know what Luckenbach, Read more
