USAToday this week published a list of the top beaches in the United States. It’s a good list, but they missed some great spots and overvalued some others. Here’s a rundown of their top 17, with my thoughts on places I’ve visited. Siesta Key, Florida: A fine, white sand beach that stretches on nearly forever. Maui,. Hawaii: Why they lumped all of Maui’s beaches into one entry is bizarre. That really diminishes the island’s offerings, as if they’d been listed individually you would probably see three or more Maui beaches in the top 15. Given you’re talking about the entire Read more
Waikiki
Visiting China is about to become a lot easier for many Canadians. As of tomorrow (Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2026), holders of Canadian passports can travel to China without having to pay for a visa. A China travel visa currently costs about $140 CAD, so this would mean a savings of almost $300 for a couple and more than $550 in savings for a family of four. The CBC reports Canadian passport holders will be “exempted from visa to enter China and stay for up to 30 days for business, tourism, family/friends visit, exchange and transit purposes.” The policy also applies Read more
New York City is the most-visited large city in the U.S. and has welcomed roughly 64.3 million travellers this year, hitting 97% of its record-setting 2019 visitation level of nearly 67 million. Time Out reports NYC saw strong domestic travel (particularly from Philadelphia, Washington D.C., Boston and Los Angeles) who mostly stayed overnight here. The U.K. remains the largest source of international travelers at 1.1 million visitors in 2024. Following that is Canada with about 1 million visitors, then in decreasing order, France, Brazil, Italy, China, Germany, Mexico, Australia and Spain. City tourism officials say they expect to surpass pre-pandemic Read more
McKinsey consulting reports more than 62 million people visited New York City in 2023, representing 93% of 2019 levels. That’s also a significant increase (9.3%) from the 56.7 million visitors to the Big Apple in 2022. Domestic tourism has recovered to roughly 95% of pre-pandemic levels, with more than 50 million domestic travellers coming to the city in 2023. International travel is not far behind, recovering to about 86% of 2019 levels. Eleven million international travellers visited New York City in 2023. They are an important source of travel revenue as they spend, on average, three times as much as Read more
Old man winter doesn’t appear to be finished with Canada just yet. Officials at Toronto Pearson Airport are warning of potential flight delays and cancellations at Canada’s largest airport due to a forecast of heavy snow today (March 22), the third full day of spring. “Toronto Pearson is expecting up to 13 cm of snow to fall at the airport, starting in the early afternoon Friday and continuing through the night,” officials said on the YYZ Twitter/X account. “At the heaviest points of the storm, we could see up to 3 cm of snow per hour at the airport. “Our Read more
