Every skier at every ski resort has faced the same conundrum: where do you find the best runs? In a resort like Whistler Blackcomb, with its 8,171 acres of skiable terrain, 270+ trails, 36 lifts, and 16 bowls, the choices are overwhelming, and analysis paralysis is a real thing. Standing in the line-up for the gondola at Creekside on a powdery Friday morning, I overhear the conversations of skiers and boarders planning the day’s attack. Opinions are floating around like the falling snow, with the debates continuing inside the gondola, all a variation of: “we could go here, or we could go there.” Or, you could keep things simple, easy, and just follow one of the Wonder Routes.
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To celebrate its 60th Anniversary, Whistler Blackcomb has launched a curated network of seven Wonder Routes to help guests of all abilities navigate the best of both mountains. The premise is simple: visit the website, download (or copy and paste) the suggested itinerary onto your phone, start at the first step, and let it guide you forward. The genius of this idea is evident by the enthusiastic response we receive when we tell people about it in the gondola and on various chairs. It’s all self-guided, so you don’t have to book anything in advance or pay anything more. What’s more, you can tackle the Wonder Routes by the letter, or amend, edit, and reference them as a starting point. With conditions clearing up, our group of two adults and two kids decided to go for the views first, with the aptly named: Top of the World.

From Roundhouse Lodge, the Top of the World Route guides us to the Peak Express where we exit the chair to a panoramic view. Some skiers are obsessed with powder and thrills, others with the natural outdoor spectacle. On a hike, I’m always telling my daughter to stop and smell the pine trees as opposed to running to the trailhead. Now at the top of Whistler Mountain, I encourage her to stop and smell the alpine views. We head down Matthews Traverse to Burnt Stew, connecting onto Jeff’s Ode to Joy—two greens and a blue ushering us to Symphony Express. It’s another chair up high into the peaks and a gorgeous connection of runs to the bottom of Harmony Express. Instead of debating where to go and what run to take, we let the 3-4 hour Wonder Route take the lead, sending us to the Peak 2 Peak Gondola and over to Blackcomb Mountain, where we take the easy Expressway to 7th Heaven Express and conclude our first Wonder Route with a hot lunch of poutine and Thai. The whole experience was efficient, easy, and wondrously devoid of FOMO.  

​The Après Route starts from Blackcomb and hits all the patios and lodges. The Glade Stashes Wonder Route guides you into the best tree runs, like Gnarly Knots, Gun Barrels, Outer Limits, and Raptors Ride off the 7th Heaven Express. This one is for advanced skiers eager to chase down black and double-black diamonds. Also for experienced skiers and boarders is the Gold Medal Route, which visits slopes and runs used during the 2010 Winter Olympics and 2025 Invictus Games. Kicking off the new 8-person Fitzsimmons Express lift, connect onto the Garbanzo Express to access the Dave Murray Downhill, which hosted the Olympic Men’s Downhill competition as well as the Super G course. Above the Timing Flats, look out for individual signs honouring gold medal winners from the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games.

For advanced skiers with 6-8 hours on their hands, the Alpine Sampler keeps things above the trees and in the bowls. You’ll take on legendary runs like Spanky’s Ladder, Overbite, and Garnet Bowl. It’s an epic day out. For our part, we decided to go with the all-green Family Certified Route as well as the more challenging Super Blues. With the flexibility of the routes, we figured we might as well enjoy the best of both worlds, linking the blue Cloud 9 to the green Expressway before taking the Peak 2 Peak back to Whistler (scoring the glass-bottom car with our timing) and continuing down Ego Bowl through the Enchanted Forest to the bottom of Emerald, before concluding our big Whistler ski day with a lovely run called Pony Trail to the top of the Creekside Gondola. At this point, the kids were committing mutiny for hot chocolate, so we downloaded, returned our rentals at Can-Ski Creekside, and rewarded them with extra marshmallows.

The Wonder Routes removed a lot of the guesswork, providing much-needed direction that we quickly came to trust and enjoy. Along the way, we discovered new sections of Whistler and Blackcomb mountains, and the kids enjoyed the treasure hunt of finding and completing both routes. Here’s hoping more routes are added in the future for different scenarios, like a Powder Route, a Surprise Route, or a Have-it-All Route. Maybe other mountains will get inspired to create their own Wonder Routes too. 
 
Click here for the latest conditions on Whistler-Blackcomb
Click here for more family-friendly activities on Whistler

This week I was interviewed by CBC Radio's Matt Galloway on The Current about flying: why people hate it, and how we got here.

Fact is, somewhere between the check-in counter and 35,000 feet, people often lose their minds. A fast-moving, crammed, pressurized cabin – not to mention the process of checking in and making your way through the theatre of security screening – is a lot to deal with.

As I discussed with Matt, there was a time when flying was aspirational, not transactional. It wasn’t just about cramming bums on seats and cutting costs by eliminating the free nuts. People dressed up to fly in suits and hats, and gourmet meals were served with tablecloths. Those days are long gone. The U.S. Transportation Secretary recently made the news with a cringe-inducing statement suggesting people should dress up again and return to this Golden Age of Flying, transferring the blame for airline incidents onto passengers instead of the system they’re put through.

Airline security is an absolute farce. There’s little consistency, we’re still removing shoes decades after one lunatic hatched a loony plan, and in some countries (mostly the USA), the TSA treats passengers with the respect of cattle in line at the abattoir. Various studies and trials have repeatedly shown the entire safety screening process to be ineffective at actually stopping a motivated passenger from getting onboard to do harm. Security theatre adds some reassurance, but a whole lot more stress and anxiety. I recently saw a mother arguing with airport security in Toronto about travelling with bottles of pumped breast milk. The baby was right there, but the bottles were over 100 ml, so it was clearly not milk but an explosive substance that would destroy the plane (likely detonated from a diaper).

All this stress chews people up. We become impatient, agitated, annoyed. Then throw in flight delays, poor communication, time changes, crying babies, and missed connections. Cram everyone on the plane and the real miracle is that the vast majority of people manage to keep it together.

The passenger in front of me is farting. One ripper after another. We can all smell it, but we can’t do anything about it. I put my nose in my shirt and smell my body odour, which isn’t great on a long flight but is better than the purple haze wafting over the seat. We’ve all had the restless kid kicking the back of the chair. My daughter is one of those kids. When we fly, I spend a great deal of time slapping her knees down as she contorts in her seat, and meeting the glare of the passenger in front of her. There are other challenges:

• The Recliner vs. The Knee Defender
• The Armrest Duel
• The Overhead Bin Squeeze
• The Oblivious Reading Light
• The Fart Monster

Psychologists call it deindividuation, a fancy term for: “I don’t know anyone here, and nobody knows me, so I’m going to behave however I damn well please.”

This kind of anonymity removes social consequences, but unfortunately, it doesn’t remove social impact. Flight attendants – one of the most under-appreciated professions, along with teachers and bus drivers – have to manage all this without it boiling over. When it does, planes are forced to land and police are called in. If that’s never happened to you (and it’s never happened to me, despite the prodding at the start of the CBC interview), you can credit a flight attendant. They’re heroes, these people. We should treat them as such.

I’m thrilled to announce the launch of a brand new, fully revised and completely overhauled 3rd Edition of The Great Canadian Bucket List.  It’s packed with dozens of new experiences, which is why I wouldn’t call it a replacement of the popular, bestselling Second Edition, more of a continuation.  To make room for new stuff, I had to let go of old stuff, because that’s thing about a Bucket List – the more you do, the more ideas keep popping up!

As you can tell from the cover, the new book is big, bold and beautiful, with a completely different look.  The folks at Dundurn Press did an amazing job, as one expects for a book about an amazing country.   My eye for unique, memorable, doable and bucket list experiences continues, from lakes in British Columbia to the Hudson Bay of Manitoba, from the East Coast Trail in Newfoundland to new adventures in Quebec, Ontario, New Brunswick and PEI.
The new edition also pays long overdue attention to Indigenous experiences across the country, with more national round-ups and page-popping photography.

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It’s an inspirational gift for students setting out on their own, newcomers, visitors, retirees, clients, members, and everyone who could use a little Canadian wonder.
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“The World Needs More Canada,” said Bono, and after several years of hard work and publishing fairy dust, not it has some.  The new books is widely available at your favourite independent or chain bookstore, as well as online through Amazon or Chapters.  Enjoy!

June

Things kicked off early this summer with a family adventure house-boating down the historic Rideau Canal.  You can read all about that adventure on Canadian Geographic – or watch the super fun video above – and either should get the point across.   Le Boat, Europe’s biggest houseboat rental company, have a range of boats stationed at Smith Falls Ontario, catering for 2, 4, 6, 10 and 12 passengers.  For this to work, the waters need to be calm, there needs to be ports to call on, and it’s all about the locks.  Later in the summer I went on another luxury houseboat experience, this time in France, but as with the rest of Canada, this Le Boat experience is an entirely different experience.  Forget the cheese and wine,  when you cross Big Rideau Lake or take on hundreds of lake islands, this houseboating trip is more rugged, adventurous, spacious that anything you’ll find in Europe, and you won’t have to worry about parking the boat with millimetres to spare in the locks. You also have the friendly lock masters from Parks Canada guiding you along the way.   My extended family joined me on this one, and we had a ball, spending a couple nights in Ottawa on the way.  I love Ottawa in summer.  The festivals, the buzz, the views… it just might be my favourite city under the sun.

July

Somewhat unusually for me, July was dominated by international travel to France and Ireland, where I could finally compare the Wild Atlantic Way to Newfoundland, and back up my claim that you’re simply not comparing Apples to Apples!     Only one will give you a much better appreciation about the country in which you actually live!   We had a fantastic road trip to Sligo, Derry, Belfast and the rock star attraction of Giant's Causeway. You can read all about our adventures in Ireland here.   Taking on active summer kid duty, I did shuttle the kids to Squamish for a wood-working lesson at Create Makerspace they both thoroughly enjoyed.  Teach my kids (and myself) how to use power tools.   You don’t have to travel far to tick off something on your bucket list.   I also took my aunt, visiting from Florida, to see Flyover Canada, as it’s a goose-bump inducing experience for any visitor to Canada, to get a sense of the overwhelming size and beauty of this country.  Given the high cost of everything these days, it’s also very well priced.  My aunt absolutely loved it.

A few days later, I found myself on a plane to Cusco, Peru.  It's a long way to go and yet I felt like I was merely travelling full circle.  20 years ago, Peru was my first port of call on my first big journey around the world, when I was just another backpacker with a wild dream for adventure and the discipline to somehow record it along the way.  I've been to Peru a few times since, but this was my first time back in Cusco, and now I was accompanied by my 12-year old daughter.   We had arrived to do a shortened version of the Inca Trail with an Indigenous-owned local company called Alpaca Expeditions.  I'd also be doing another story about the amazing food in Peru, taking a cooking class and a fabulous street food tour.  I brought along the kid with the adventurous appetite, hoping she'd be able to cope with the altitude and the pace of an assignment.  As you can see in the video, she did more than cope, she thrived.  Cusco looked exactly the same as it did 20 years ago, but a lot has changed too: the crazy traffic, the smart phones, the high-end restaurants and hotels.  Sprinkled among it all were the scraggy backpackers, heading to the Andes for the adventure of a lifetime.  Thinking back to my own adventure in 2005, I could never have imagined returning to Sun Gate - older, wiser, fatter - with so many once-in-a-lifetimes I've lost count, and with a beautiful daughter to keep me company.  Full circle indeed! 

Luxury river boats in France.  Road tripping Ireland.  Hiking in Peru. Racing horses (and a Mustang) in the Cariboo.  Helicopters to the island, Harley Davidsons and a Gold Rush.  How was my summer?   Epic, as always. 

Ideas for my stories are birthed from an unpredictable algorithm of curiosity, public interest, and outreach from partners in the tourism industry.  Looking back at the first part of this year, you can see this in action.

CURIOSITY: 
On rare date night, Mrs Esrock and I took an amble down Commercial Drive in Vancouver, strolling past a store that had just opened for business.  It was called Mocktails, and billed itself as the city’s first alcohol-free liquor store.  Between the craft beer, wineries, cocktails and distilleries, alcohol is firmly entrenched in the world of tourism, long associated with good times and fine living.   The dark side of it is well, kept in the dark:  alcoholism, drunk driving, binge drinking, the horrific impact of alcohol on social violence and domestic abuse.  You just don’t see this stuff in the tourism brochures.   With a precipitous (and one might argue encouraging) decline in alcohol consumption among younger generations, non-alcoholic cocktails, beers and wines are increasingly showing up on drink menus.  Here is a non-boozy booze store founded by a passionate advocate for the cause, spearheading a taste revolution as producers up their game to cater to a growing market.   The story I wrote for Canadian Geographic – Canada’s Non-Alcoholic Revolution – went down smooth and easy, and picked up writing awards in the Food and Wine Category from both the Society of American Travel Writers and the Travel Media Association of Canada.  Added to previous awards from both professional associations for Family Travel, Service Feature the Lowell Thomas Gold Medal for Best Blog (a Lowell Thomas is one of the highest accolades one can receive in my profession), it’s inspiring to know my stories can make a difference with both readers and industry.

PUBLIC INTEREST
Have you ever rented a houseboat down the Rideau Canal?   At the end of my travel talks at client events for Canada’s best wealth advisors, the floor opens up for a Q&A.  Sometimes the questions are practical: “Can you recommend a great place to stay in Portugal?”   Sometimes it’s life coaching: “My wife and I are looking for an adventure but nothing too crazy, do you think we should do it?”   Sometimes it’s travel advice: “Do you have any packing tips?”  And sometimes, it’s a lead I that inspires me to chase it down, like: “Have you ever rented a houseboat down the Rideau Canal?”   From an idea or suggestion to actually getting there and publishing a story usually takes a few years.  Many stars have to align, like calendars, marketing plans, editorial schedules, and partner interest.  Houseboating down the Rideau took a few years before it all came together, but unfortunately it was too late to include in the third edition of The Great Canadian Bucket List out later this year.  As a multi-generational discovery of southern Ontario and Canadian lore, the story –  Exploring Ontario’s historic Rideau Canal by houseboat: A scenic journey through Canadian history – sparked tremendous interest online, becoming the top story at Canadian Geographic Travel.   

PARTNER OUTREACH
Every day, I receive press releases about destination marketing initiatives, activities, hotels, and news from across the domestic and international tourism industry.  Travel media is the megaphone for an industry that generates 10% of global GDP (a staggering US$10.9 trillion) and accounts for an estimated 357 million jobs (source: WTTC).   You might have an incredible city, restaurant or cruise ship, but that doesn’t mean much if people don’t know about it.  Billions are spent on advertising, but until the day our AI Overlords usher us into Extraction Pods to harvest our energy (source: The Matrix), the most powerful form of advertising will always be compelling and authentic storytelling.  Outlets include print, broadcast and social media, and for me personally, have transitioned from newspaper columns to digital columns, and lately the stage.  All my platforms are hungry for content and I serve as a filter for peak travel experiences that capture the imagination.  A perfect example:   Cruising down the Nile with the kids, or hiking in comfort in the Australian outback, or snowmobiling in Ontario or kayaking under the stars in New Brunswick’s Hopewell Rocks.   I also love shining a light on innovations, like the fastest growing indoor recreational activity in North America (born in Winnipeg) and how the best travel can be inspiring, quirky, and inclusive.  None of the stories above would have happened if hard-working pros in the PR game hadn’t brought them to my attention, so that I could bring it to yours.

​NEW VIDEOS:
 
I often film and edit videos to accompany my written stories, building a visual repertoire of my most memorable bucket list experiences.  Although my videos have over a million views, I don’t consider myself a hardworking Youtuber, working the algorithm to maximize eyeballs.  Kudos to them, it’s a ton of work few can appreciate behind the scenes.  Hell, it’s a ton of work just making a video.    Since my first Youtube clip 20 years ago (called Something to Make You Dream), I’ve continued to produce punchy montage videos soundtracked to the songs I love.   Occasionally, I'll get help from friends, like award-winning photographer Jeff Topham.    Here’s some fun recent videos you might have missed. 

When you do what I do, unusual things sometimes happen.  Such as:  finding myself getting smashed with actor Dan Aykroyd as we drain bottles of his Crystal Head Vodka. We were at a remote dinosaur dig in Alberta during a celebrity fundraiser for a new dinosaur museum named after the real-life inspiration for the Sam Neill character in Jurassic Park.   Later I would share a day in a helicopter with the president of the illustrious Explorers Club, who invited me to be the Master of Ceremonies at the club’s infamous annual dinner at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York. Following previous MC’s including Aykroyd, Dan Rather, and other celebrities better known and more qualified, I assumed she was joking.

​Months later it all actually manifested and off I went to New York to hold centre stage at a black-tie dinner with astronauts, ambassadors, billionaires, legendary filmmakers, explorers and scientific legends.  I would wear an oversize rental tuxedo with a bright orange tie, read from a teleprompter, and be introduced on stage by drummers from Papua New Guinea.  I didn’t write the script in a tightly managed, big-budget and choreographed evening, which happened to be the night before a board coup that ousted the lovely president who invited me, seemingly jettisoning everything she touched, myself included.   That evening, I sat next to director Ken Burns, an intense chap who read a monotone keynote about Lewis and Clark. I love Ken Burns documentaries, his keynotes less so.   I introduced and handed awards to some real legends, including astronaut Buzz Aldin, a man with a twinkle in his eyes who clearly knows exactly how to enjoy himself.  I also shared the stage with the late US wildlife TV legend Jim Fowler, and an iguana clearly delighted to avoid the dinner table.

The buffet at the annual dinner is legendary, stacked with delicious invasive species like grilled lionfish, water bugs, rattlesnake, iguana, emu, and delectable goat penis on a stick.   This is the Explorers Club after all.   As my mug appeared on big screens, I expect most people were wondering who the hell I was, and where my accent came from.  At the bar, I learned just how tense things were that year, politically, in a members-only society that should rival its competitor National Geographic for global renown.   After all, Hillary planted an Explorers Club flag on Everest, and Neil Armstrong took one to the moon.   Yet while National Geographic embraced the public with a magazine and TV shows, the Explorers Club retreated into a shadowy elite organization, sequestered behind impressive stone walls in its old-world rowhouse headquarters in New York.  
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Things have long since improved under a revitalized new board, but when I stepped into the building the morning after the event to learn more about the club and conduct some interviews, intrigue and ego dripped from the walls. A prickly atmosphere clashed with the medals, curios, awards, and photographs of illustrious members accomplishing otherworldly things.   Yes, there’s a full sized stuffed polar bear in the library, and yes, the Explorers Club has counted US presidents, titans of industry and today’s most famous billionaires as members.    In case you’re wondering, it’s a process to join this Freemasonry of Adventure. 

​Joining me that weekend in New York was my friend and filmmaker Ian Mackenzie, and we thought it would be fun to capture the absurdity of our adventure by paying tribute to the mystery of the organization.  So, I wrote something up and adopted an accent as bad as my rental tuxedo, narrating a film noir video that does actually take you inside the dinner and organization.   Shooting it for Matador in a brief moment of time when the organization didn’t mind some public attention, I thought it would be fun to unearth that video and share it here.

As for the dinosaur dig that kicked it off, in attendance was also Robert F Kennedy Jnr, who is a lot better known now than he was back then.  I brushed away dirt from fossils with the Aykroyd family, and the Philip J Currie Dinosaur Museum just celebrated its 10th anniversary in Grande Prairie.    I collected a few more experiences too weird to make up, and because of that chance encounter with ambassador of Papua New Guinea at the event, I ended up learning to scuba dive in a truly remarkable part of the world.  I was never invited to join the actual Explorers Club, but several of my friends are members, and I’m perfectly happy to be a Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographic Society instead.  In the end, we’re all on our own personal adventures.

​It is known as the Capital of Cars, the Engine of Italy.    Born within a golden circle that surrounds the city of Modena, are the mythical brands whispered on the lips of car lovers the world over, along with the mega-rich, and boys of all ages. Maserati. De Tomaso.  Pagani.   The Italian sports car introduced the world to speed and luxury, the ultimate union of art and technology.   Defining this perfectly are the region’s two most famous sons:  Lamborghini, and Ferrari, vehicles that have transcended the circuits and bolts within them, commanding religious-like reverence from both drivers, and dreamers.
 
Few car enthusiasts know there would be no Lamborghini were it not for Ferrari.    Ferrucio Lamborghini was one of the wealthiest men in Italy, having made his fortune selling tractors and appliances.    An avid car enthusiast and collector, among Ferrucio’s favourites were several Ferraris, although he found them to be mechanically temperamental.   A recurring clutch issue led him to contact Enzo Ferrari, founder and namesake, a volatile character best described as being ferociously driven in the pursuit of automobile racing.   How different the vehicle landscape would be if Ferrari had taken his customer’s feedback seriously.  Instead, Enzo allowed the manufacture of Ferrari sports cars only as a means to fund his beloved racing initiatives.   Private customers had to put up with Enzo’s notoriously dismissive attitude, viewed as an unfortunate by-product for owning a vehicle of such outstanding quality.   Ferrucio was no different.  However, once informed that a tractor manufacturer had no right to criticize Ferrari’s cars, Lamborghini was compelled to repair his own models, and discovered that the mechanics of car and tractors had encouraging similarities.   If Ferrari would not improve their road models, Lamborghini had the knowledge and financial clout to do it for them. In 1963, Automobili Lamborghini was born.  With the help of hired ex-Ferrari engineers, his first model - a 350 GTV - was rolled out, built in a factory set up not far from Ferrari’s own.    Unlike Ferrari, Lamborghini would focus solely on sports cars, shying away from the racetrack.    Today, Lamborghini is a name synonymous with the Italian sports car, a better-looking thorn in the much bigger Ferrari landscape.   Did Enzo rue his decision to insult Ferrucio?   Probably not.  He was a man so focused on the chequered flag there was little time for Sunday afternoon drives in the countryside.  

​Just a few minutes across the municipal border into Bologna, you’ll find the headquarters and factory of Lamborghini.   The eponymous Bull logo, taken from Ferrucio’s Taurus star sign, appears boldly on the walls.   A parking lot holds dozens of Audis belonging to staff, now that the German manufacturer owns 100% of the Lamborghini brand.   Since the 1970’s, the company has endured bankruptcy, a sale to Chrysler (itself sold to Italian car giant Fiat), ownership by an Indonesian consortium headed by the son of the dictator Suharto, and sporadic years of economic uncertainty.   Yet it has continued to produce vehicles that have redefined design and car envy. Vehicles like the Aventador, Murciélago, the Diablo, and its predecessor, the Countach.   As a teenage boy, I had a mounted poster of a blue Countach in my bedroom, a rocket ship on earth, my ultimate dream car.   It was named after an Italian wolf whistle, for that is what it in inspired.   Subsequent generations of the Countach, along with one of a kind prototypes and concept cars, are on display in an on-site gallery, open daily to the public.     The Concept S has adjacent seat booths protected by individual windows, creating the distinct look of a jet fighter.  The LM002 looks much like a Hummer, an SUV built in the mid-1980’s, way before its time.   A green Countach sits so low on the ground it barely reaches my thigh.    On show is also a Lamborghini police car, one of two donated to the Italian police department, to be used for emergency organ transplants and blood deliveries.  It is the car you want to be arrested in.  

​Behind the gallery is the factory itself, where every Lamborghini created is carefully hand-assembled.   There are no giant robots drilling sparks into the air.  There is no loud industrial noise, or even a spot of grease on the floor.  Every 190 minutes, the cars move forward on a U-shaped production line to the next work station, where a team of white-gloved engineers set to work installing the electronics, the interior, the wheels and dashboard.  For factory engineers, they look young, healthy, and completely enthused by their job, paying attention to the finest detail, scribbling their efforts into a production book that will follow the vehicle for the remainder of its life.   Lamborghini does not keep stock.   Each model is made to order, customized according to the exact specification of the buyer.   From station to station, the car matures, until at the halfway point, a marriage takes place.   The engine, already assembled, is hoisted up and inserted into the chassis, the perfect metaphor for the soul entering the body.    At the final station, the electronics are tested, the lights flicker on, and spark plugs get their first ignition.  The birth roar of an engine is primal, like a dragon breathing fire, a lion owning the savannah.   190 minutes later, another customized model, black fly-wing doors open, will roar its approval. 
 
It takes the finest leather of five Austrian cows to furnish the interior of Lamborghini, dyed in lush colours and stitched by hand.  One upholsterer has large photos of his kids above his work desk.  My guide says “this is love, no?”, I am not sure if she’s talking about the kids, or the car. Valetino Balboni,  a 60 year-old test driver hired by Ferrucio Lamborghini himself, pulls up in a silver Gallardo LP 560-4 Spyder.    He’s been driving these cars longer than I have been alive, and he’s taking me into the countryside to demonstrate what all that marvellous production amounts to.     A car journalist might tell you that the Gallardo Spyder has a new 5.2 litre V10 engine with an output of 560 horsepower, a power to weight ratio of 2.77kg, an 18% reduction in fuel consumption and C02 emissions from previous models, and a top speed of 324 km/hr.    All I’ll say is that stepping into the Spyder for the first time made me giggle like a schoolgirl.   There is not a head on this planet (or any other for that matter) that would not swivel the second it sees this elegant creation.   No wonder that Jeremy Clarkson, presenter of Top Gear and the car man’s car man, replaced his Ford GT with a Gallardo Spyder.   Valentino presses a button, the Spyder growls to life, and we effortlessly pull into the road.   At the first intersection, I receive eight nods of envy and three photographs.  

We are but two men comfortably seated on expensive red leather with a powerful state of the art engine strapped to our backs.  Valentino shoots ahead, demonstrating the incredible power (0 to 100 km/hr in 3.9 seconds) and stop-on-a-penny all wheel drive braking. The sudden lurch of speed, as we taking sharp corners that could flip most cars, is not unlike being in a rollercoaster, catapulting forward but leaving my eyeballs trailing.   We find a quiet stretch and Valentino invites me to take the wheel.  With an advanced paddle shift transmission and various driving modes, he reassures me that I cannot make a mistake, as the car will automatically adjust itself as it needs.   Sweat is dripping from my forehead, and this low to the tarmac, heat is radiating from the ground. The temperate in the cockpit reads an incredible 50C under a relentless Italian summer sun.    I hesitantly pull forward, piloting a vehicle worth more than I could ever afford, well aware that I had signed a waiver holding me responsible for any mishaps.    Valentino was right.   The Spyder is beautifully forgiving, guiding my paddle presses, injecting fuel when needed, shifting solidly around corners.   It doesn’t take long before I have the confidence to induce G-force and make this silver bullet fly.   I drive back to the factory, pull up in front of a group of jealous tourists, and would have made a proud and gallant exit had my knees not buckled under the pure bliss of the experience.
 
It is a short drive from the Lamborghini factory to Maranello, where Enzo Ferrari relocated his factory after his original workshops in Modena were bombed during World War II.   Maranello is a mecca for racing and car enthusiasts, and is not so much a small town as a Ferrari theme park.  There are Ferrari stores and Ferrari schools, red-painted restaurants and hotels.  Images of the famous prancing horse - adopted as a logo by Enzo in 1923 from a famed Italian fighter pilot - are everywhere.  While Lamborghini and Ferrari are both Italian sports cars, it is immediately clear that Ferrari is the much larger enterprise -  a fast, bright red world unto itself. 
 
Enzo, who died in 1988, did not live to see Michael Schumacher dominate Formula 1 at the wheel of a Ferrari, but this was always his dream.  Enzo was born to race, and when he realized his own skill was not up to par with the best, he changed his destiny so that other drivers could fulfil theirs.   Originally working for Alfa Romeo, he left the company to start his own stable of race cars called Scuderia Ferrari, literally, Stable Ferrari.  Founded in 1947,  Ferrari’s impact on the world of motor racing was immediate if somewhat turbulent.  It appeared to have more success off the track, as Ferrari road cars became the sought after toys of wealthy car enthusiasts.   Yet Enzo viewed the consumer market as an afterthought.  Plugging millions into racing development, financial woes in the 1960’s forced him to sell a large stake in the company to Fiat, which today owns 90% of the company.     Yet Enzo’s tenacity, not to mention the raw power, stylish design and racing mentality of his cars, ensured not only the survival but also Ferrari’s growth into perhaps the world’s most sought after and recognized sport car brand.  Ferraris are vehicles of success, on and off the road. 

​At the Galleria Ferrari, many of the most famous Ferraris are on display for an adoring public.   From the original cars built by Enzo to the F1 triumphs of Michael Schumacher, the recreation of a pit stop inside the museum continues to emphasise the importance of the racetrack to the company.  It takes some time for me to realize that the display cars are not replicas, but the very models that dominated sport headlines around the world, having won 31 Formula 1 World Titles.   Upstairs are the sports cars, the famous Testa Rossa, the F40, the Enzo Ferrari, named in tribute.    A red 308GTS represents my personal introduction to Ferrari – the car driven by Tom Selleck in the 80’s series Magnum.  There is a marked difference from the sleekness and almost minimalistic lines I found inside Lamborghini’s showcase. These cars exude brute strength, more muscle than finesse. A special showcase houses a black 1957 250 Testa Rossa, an antique car that happens to be one of the most expensive vehicles ever sold at an auction.  It sold for a staggering US$12.1 million, and it doesn’t even have headlights.  
 
Just about every car in the Galleria Ferrari is bright red, a colour forever associated with Ferrari, even though all Italian sports cars have been painted red since a racing organization assigned it to the country in the 1920’s.   French blue, German white (later silver), British green.   Ferrari came to own the colour because it came to own the idea of Italian race cars.  Ironically, the 430 Scuderia waiting for me to test drive outside is a light metallic blue, with two silver racing stripes down the middle.    Launched by Michael Schumacher at the Frankfurt Auto Show in 2007, this model was created to complete with the Lamborghini Gallardo Superleggera, offering a lighter body, more power, and faster speed.   508 horsepower at 8500 rpm, power to rate ratio of 2.5kk/hp, an F1-trac system and E-Diff stability control, and I’m not really sure what all that means other than this is a purebred racing machine built for speed.  0 – 100 km/hr in 3.5 seconds, and with a top speed of 320 km/hr, you’re always the pace car on the smooth Italian autostrade.  
 
My test driver’s name is Gabriel, and we both agree that a job requiring you to drive in a Ferrari all day is a job worth keeping.   Of all the Ferraris he has driven at the company, this is his favourite, because this model, he tells me, was built for racing, period.   The interior is somewhat basic, the seats practical, belts tellingly over the shoulder, like the jump seat in an aeroplane.  A metal footplate lets me support myself as Gabriel screams around the bend of a quiet country road, the engine snarling as he shifts the transmission with the paddles. We are tigers lurking in the concrete jungle of automobiles, ferociously hunting prey.   After screeching past a chicane, I ask Gabriel how fast he was going.  With a wry grin, he tells me he doesn’t know.   You’d have to have a Lamborghini police car to catch us anyway, and I happen to know they’re focused on other priorities.

​It is late afternoon when we drive back to the Galleria, and in the traffic of rush hour, it seems almost cruel for the 430 Scuderia to trot at 40 km/hr back to the stable.   A race car without a race is but an appetite without the means to feed it.   I thank my pilot, awkwardly exit the cockpit, and walk over to my rented blue Peugeot 107.  Like most cars in Italy, it is a tiny vehicle capable of squeezing through narrow cobblestone streets, slotting in miniscule parking spaces, but still exceeding the 130 km/hr speed limit on the highway.   It is half the size of a Ferrari or Lamborghini, but it got me to both factories safely, with room for my suitcase and a couple friends.    Comparing it in the same breath as these mighty Italian giants seems almost sacrilegious, and yet the realist might argue they are all machines of transport, on four rubber wheels, powered by an engine.   Is a supermodel a better person because she looks better than the average housewife?   Is a sportsman a better father because he has more strength and tanned, toned muscles?    This is logic, and certainly, this is folly.   Dream machines were not designed to carry groceries or pick up the kids.   Lamborghini and Ferrari are the golden chariots that shepherd our inspiration, our quest for power, speed and beauty, the desire to transcend practicality in the name of art and technology.   Placing a price tag on such an endeavour misses the point.  For the majority of us who can appreciate if not afford the result, there’s always a visit to the Engine of Italy.

Congratulations, it’s my 20th Travel Anniversary!   In 2025, I set out on a 12 month, solo, round-the-world adventure to run away from adulthood and search for adventure.  So many crazy things happened during that one amazing year, recorded in a long-form now defunct blog called Modern Gonzo, that I got a tattoo on my leg to permanently remind myself it really happened.  The plan was to return to Vancouver and get a job doing…something.  Sometimes I’m asked where I think I’d be if that car hadn’t run me down that fateful day on Alberni Street, triggering into motion all the wild adventures that continue to follow.    It’s a silly exercise, wondering about the if onlys and the what ifs.   What if one of the bands I believed in more than anything hit the rockstar jackpot?   What if I wasn’t born in South Africa?  If only that show got picked up, that book got published, that project got greenlit, that first internet boom didn’t explode while I was right in the middle of it!  It’s easy to rationalize that things happen for a reason, and we humans are zen masters at it.   What’s that wisdom:  worrying about the past leads to nothing but misery, and worrying about the future leads to nothing but anxiety.   Nonetheless, here in the now, I’m taking a moment to reflect on my journey from budget backpacker to TV personality to newspaper columnist to bestselling author to husband, father, landowner, speaker, travel expert, consultant, and however else you want to label me.  Actually, it’s a little overwhelming and probably best left to a book one day.  But it has triggered all sorts of nostalgia, although for some reason, my brain is casting for memories much further back than twenty years.  Let’s see where it takes us.

First Time in the Sky
 
My very first plane trip was recorded for national television news in South Africa.  SA Airways had a special promotion for people to fly for the first time, taking off from what was then Jan Smuts International Airport (now Oliver Tambo) for a half hour joyride over Johannesburg.   My parents booked us onto that flight.  I don’t know how they did it, or why, or how much it cost, but off we went to the airport to hit the skies, in a plane much like the one above, accompanied by an SABC TV news crew on the plane to capture a feel-good story at a time when South African media were prohibited from covering the actual news, that is, the protests against the apartheid regime.  I think I was 8 or 9 years old.   My parents had been overseas once, so they’d been on a plane before.  My older brother got the vox pop at the very end of the news segment, which we watched that evening abuzz with the flight and possibly more excited we might be on the news.  They interviewed the whole family I think, because I remember saying something to the camera.  But my older brother got his voice on national television, just a single line that I still recall.  He said: “It was very cool.”   He was always beating me at everything, my older brother, then as now. 

I Got Stoned in Mea Sharim
 
The next time we got on a plane was on an El Al flight to Tel Aviv.  Years ahead of the intergenerational travel trend, three generations of my family were booked onto a bus tour of Israel.  I think it was 1988.   My grandfather, Abie Esrock, always wore a bowtie, walked with a cane, spoke with a thick accent, and looked much older than he was due to a stroke.  My younger brother, who was 3 years old, threw up every day on the bus.  We were joined by a large contingent of South African families. The teens gathered into a crew, the little kids played together, and I was a tween awkwardly stuck in the middle, as tweens are wont to do.   I have some strong memories from that trip: the taste of the shawarma, hummus and eggplant; the typical Israeli breakfast, served each morning without the slightest touch of variation; the smell of pink Bazooka bubble gum; the T-shirts with funny catchphrases; the teenage girls on the bus with all their alluring mysteries.  We went to Masada and the Dead Sea, we went to Jerusalem and Haifa.  One day, a rock came flying through the bus window, landing close to my grandparents.  This was the start of the second intifada, and I don’t recall parents being particularly bothered by it all, because I wasn’t paying too much attention.  I’m sure the incident freaked them right out of their eyeballs, and the army showed up quickly.  I was probably listening to music on my blue Sony Walkman throughout the entire episode. Someone bought a T-shirt that said I got stoned in Mea Sharim.  Mea Sharim is an ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighbourhood known to be hostile, sometimes violently, towards modern visitors. I didn’t get the joke, because I was 13.   Ironically, I think we were close to Mea Sharim when technically, we did actually get stoned.

​Envy the youth for their ignorance
 
My family visited Israel again, when I was 15, and again when I was 17.   That’s how I can honestly claim to have visited Gaza, because my great-uncle, an Israeli pioneer, lived in the territory in a tiny Israeli settlement on a hill surrounded by three large Palestinian towns.  We were reassured that someone in the army swept the playground for bombs before our arrival.  We climbed up a water tower, and I remember looking at the Arab towns, which looked peaceful in the late afternoon sun.  I didn’t understand the politics back home in South Africa, much less Israel.   Envy the youth for their ignorance.

​Bloodsport with a Legend
 
It's interesting what you remember, years later, even when your head is saturated with several lifetimes of experience.  That same trip, my brother and I left the hotel in Tel Aviv one night to see a movie.  It was called Bloodsport, with a then-unknown Jean Claude Van Damme, and it was the coolest damn kung-fu chop-socky movie we had ever seen.  In the line-up outside the theatre, waiting with us to get tickets, was a tall, big, and handsome black American man.  He had a moustache and looked like a movie actor. I don’t know what he was doing in Israel, but we struck up a conversation with the guy.  I like to remember that he said he “fought in ‘Nam” but I might have adopted that memory from watching too many movies.  In my movie-infused memory, he also looked very much like the actor Jim Brown in the 1970s, or Bubba Smith, the former footballer who played Hightower in Police Academy.  Maybe it was.  Anyway, he asked us where we were from, and my brother looked at me and I looked at him and we both remember, to this day, being embarrassed to say we were South African. Because we knew what apartheid was, and we knew it was wrong, and it was embarrassing and shameful to present our white sorry asses to this tall, proud, black American man, the first black American we’d ever met.   But we didn’t fib, we told him we were visiting from Johannesburg, and to his credit, he didn’t shun or shame us. He just shrugged and continued the conversation. I think we sat next to him for the movie.  Man, did Bloodsport ever kick Chong-Li ass. I think we were high-fiving our new American friend at the end.  We did a lot in Israel that trip, but that’s the one moment I vividly recall the most.  The people you meet on a journey often leave the biggest impression. 

Inspiring Others to Inspire Others
 
This month I had the privilege to fly to the Mayan Riviera and address a conference room of travel agents and suppliers.  I was invited to give a keynote about the Power of Story to the lovely folks at The Travel Agent Next Door, a network of Canadian agents, gathered for their annual conference at the fantastic Iberostar Selection Paraíso Lindo along the Mayan Riviera.  Whoever designed this mega-resort is an artist, it’s absolutely gorgeous.   I had some wonderful conversations with agents from around the country, learned a few things, pondered the future of tourism, and sparked up various opportunities. My keynote clearly resonated because it got a standing ovation, which in the world of speaking is like a year-end, feel-good bonus.  I’ve mostly been doing smaller events of late and it felt good to be on a big stage with three jumbotrons, inspiring others to inspire others, making a positive difference at a time the world desperately needs some hope and positivity.  I encouraged everyone to take a media diet from the bad news, and also encouraged myself while doing so.  In a month of utter economic chaos caused by the will of a madman, this captivating hour on stage is the one moment I hope to remember. 

​This month I got a call from CBC Radio to talk about Canadian tourism on the national show, The Current.  Nothing particularly unusual there, I’ve spoken about Canadian tourism a dozen times on CBC Radio before, although this time I would be patching in from a remote forest in Puerto Rico.  There's always a compelling reason to have me on:  it might be early summer and everyone is planning their vacations,  or perhaps I have a new book out and want to promote it.  This time, it’s because Canadians are being encouraged to explore their own backyard at the expense of our southern neighbours.   

The reason for this is entirely political.  A new US administration wants to tariff Canadian products and flex its economic muscles to negotiate more favourable trade deals, to hell with the Canadian economy (and Canadians in general).  It's Big Guy Bulling Little Guy 101,  but this is not the space to get into politics or my thoughts about that guy. It is however a place to talk about tourism.  According to a recent report, if Canadians stop visiting the US, it could have as much as a $6 billion hit on the US economy.    That’s not peanuts, although given the size of the US economy, it’s not going to make much of a dent - or provide much negotiating leverage - either. This is assuming you can get every Canadian to stop travelling to the US, which you can’t. What it does do is hurt tourism on both sides of the border. With patriotic vitriol and retaliatory tariffs, Americans won’t visit their beautiful northern neighbour, and Canadians won’t feel compelled to go south.  This will hit tour operators, hotels, transportation companies, restaurants, and a lot of other ancillary businesses too.

For an industry that famously brings people together, tourism is now being positioned as an economic weapon, and one of the few Canada has when it comes to a much larger, richer and aggressive neighbour.  It’s just one example of the chaos and disorder that guy is sowing in this strange new world, where nobody can believe anything they see or hear, and all the hard work to become socially responsible, ethical and empathetic appears to have been tossed out a window.   It will, of course, all blow over, because it always does. In the meantime, more Canadians will choose to travel in Canada, which is never a bad thing, especially for Canada’s foremost bucket list travel expert!  I do have several upcoming US trips planned, and have no intention of cancelling, despite feeling some pressure from colleagues in the industry.  It’s been my experience that tourism people are open-minded, generous, informed, and believe in the benefits of welcoming people, in as opposed to shutting them out.  It’s not US tourism's fault, and I’m not going to punish them.  That said, apples for apples, if you have a choice between taking a Canadian or US vacation right now, until that guy quits threatening and mocking the sovereignty of its friendly normal neighbour, the choice for everyone north of the border should be obvious.  And with their exceptionally strong dollar, the choice for everyone south of the border should be obvious too. 
 

Upon my return from Puerto Rico, it was nice to be greeted with this physical award recognizing the quality and effort of my blog, www.canadianbucketlist.com.   A Lowell Thomas Gold Media Award is one of the most prestigious awards in my wild and crazy profession. As Aesop said: "Gratitude turns what we have into enough."