Burning Man is so famously impossible to describe, I’m not even going to try.   I won’t talk about flying into Vegas to rent an RV for a 10-hour drive to Black Rock City, even if there was an opportunity to play craps with a purple-haired transvestite, but that’s another story.   I definitely won’t talk about driving past the massive US military installations in Hawthorne, Nevada, since that, along with nearby Area 51, has severe access restrictions.  I could tell you how, upon arriving in Burning Man, us virgins were made to roll around in the white flour dust of the Playa, embracing the dirt that we’d mentally prepared ourselves to combat.    It took mere seconds for the dust to cling to our clothes, skin, and psyche.   Look, I’ve spent the last five years waiting to get to Burning Man, and was as nervous and apprehensive as anyone.    Nothing to buy?  No taps, showers, or garbage bins?   50,000 plus people* in a hostile environment, and somehow this is meant to be fun?  All these adventures over the years, and just when I think I’ve seen it all, something shows up to smash my head with an experiential baseball bat, letting my brain ooze into the mud.  Something like Burning Man.

For those unfamiliar:  It’s an art festival, showcasing thousands of sculptures and modified cars and creative structures.  It’s a music festival, with hundreds of makeshift venues for DJ’s and musicians.  It’s a costume festival, with everyone wearing something extraordinary, if they choose to wear something at all. It’s a conference for the mind, offering free lectures and educational seminars from thinkers across the creative-arts-and social science spectrum.  It’s a religious festival, steering clear of organized dogma into the realms of free expression, open worship of the universe, and a deep reverence for the beauty of diversity.  It’s a love festival, where nudity is accepted, sex is acceptable, and tantric workshops are held.   It’s a community of likeminded individuals gathering in a remote place to avoid the confused, ignorant reaction of those who simply don’t get it, and probably never will.  It’s a backlash against corporate America, where no brands or advertisements or promotion is allowed.  It’s the wildest, most hedonistic party you’ve ever seen.   And most of all, Burning Man is none of these things at all.  

It started with a small group of artists in a hostile desert, challenging their creative limits and engaging in a form of self reliance and personal responsibility – this in a country so drunk on blaming others and passing the buck.   Fundamentals evolved: 

• Only mutant cars allowed on the Playa, and by mutant, that means nothing that wouldn’t give a cop whiplash if you passed him on the highway.
• Leave no trace, pack it in, pack it out, and no moop (matter out of place) such as feathers, glitter, cigarette butts or cheapo crap from China
• Commerce:  You cannot buy or sell anything, although water and ice is available at the central camp.
• No firearms, no pets, respect public boundaries…

It’s jarring to read the Survival Guide in an age where long form legal disclaimers are posted on parking lots.    There are countless ways to kill yourself at Burning Man, from exposure to extreme weather to getting toasted by a rogue art piece.   It’s your responsibility to stay alive, even though just about everyone you meet will gladly help you out (including volunteer rangers and medical staff).  You can scream and shout and spit and sue, but in the end, this is a community that lives according to its own rules.   The guide sets it straight on the front page: “Above and beyond the provision for individual survival, everyone is requested to help ensure our collective survival by following very basic rules relating to public safety and community well being.  Community membership is a privilege. “   If you don’t get it, please don’t come.   You’ll hate every second of it.

Within hours, every expectation I had about Burning Man was blown out the water.  I just didn’t expect the scale of the event to be so huge, the creative energy so vast.  Black Rock City emerges almost overnight, shaped like a clock, organized by the hands of the hour and 12 long, circular promenades. Bikes are essential if you want to see a fraction of everything, with the city stretching over 5 miles across.   There are hundreds of camps and villages set up along the grid, tribes ranging from a few members to several hundred.    Each camp offers something of value to the casual passer by:  Free cocktails, hot tamales, engaging conversation.   Free massages, games of tennis, bowling, a mechanical bull ride.  Free rides, free bad advice, free hugs, free drugs, free kisses, free help.   Free beds, free art, free costumes, free decorations for your bike.   Everyone seems to bring more than they need and need less than they want.   It’s a free for all, and it took a while to recalibrate my capitalistic conditioning so that I stopped asking “what’s the catch?”  There isn’t one.   “Where am I?”  It doesn’t matter.    “Who are you?”  A burner just like you.   “Where are we going?” I don’t know, but there’s no rush, so lets take it slow. 

​I saw things that shocked, surprised, dazzled and delighted me.   Moments of beauty, moments of overstimulation, moments of bewilderment.   Every time I stopped to ask “how on earth did they get this here?” I was reminded to stop questioning and start accepting.   My guides were friends old and new, veteran Burners and virgins like myself.    As much as this is a community event, every single Burner develops a unique personal response to the environment.  Some thrive in the heavy dust storms that blind and sting.   Some thrive in the camps and villages. Some thrive in the scorching hot day,  others in the cool, LED-lit night.   Drawing it all in together is the Man himself, erected on a wooden platform at 12 o’clock,  looking out over the gathering.  He started small over a dozen years ago, a couple feet high, burned to the ground on a beach outside San Francisco.   The Wicker Man fulfilled a similar role in Europe for centuries, but Burning Man’s founders claim that is a coincidence.  This year’s Man stood 104ft tall, regally awaiting the climax of the week-long event, his destined combustion.  The Man is Gonna Burn.   What does it mean, this Man on Fire?  A symbol of passion and drive, signifying anything is possible?   A community bringing down “the Man” that traps us with its strangling laws and bureaucracy and tax and corruption?    The collective ambition of a nation of pyromaniacs?   I hear these and other theories under the sound of fireworks exploding at his feet, driving the massive crowd into a frenzy.  Any second now he’s going to be a giant fireball.  Sometimes he burns fast, sometimes he burns slow.  A huge dust storm sweeps in, blowing fiery ash into the crowd.  This is not cause for concern.   We are prepared with the right gear and attitude.   Only here do the harsh elements become cause for celebration.   

​The called her the Belle of the Ball.   Standing on one leg, 40ft tall, skinned in polished steel that lights up at night, Bliss Dance is a staggering creation of beauty.  This statue could compete with any major landmark in the world, stealing the spotlight with its immense size and brilliant execution.   Is the world ready for such naked beauty, such unabashed appreciation of the female form?   No, which is why this privately funded work of art will probably land up somewhere remote, somewhere special, outside the guidebooks but well worth a pilgrimage.   It took a year to build. It could be appreciated by many generations.**   

​There’s a Monkey Chant in the Centre Camp.  It’s different tribe from the Balinese one featured in the documentary Baraka, hypnotically blending their voices into a cacophony of sound.  Hippies and corporate climbers, artists and thinkers, the haves and have nots.  Is the guy playing the flaming tuba really one of the producers of the Simpsons?   Did the guys at Google donate thousands of community bikes?   Are there celebrities in the house?  What does it matter?    I spent a half hour looking for a friend at Center Camp one afternoon, and realized that even if I walked right past her, I probably wouldn’t recognize her, and she wouldn’t recognize me. I was wearing red underwear with printed eyes on my thighs, blue wings made out of recycled water bottles, a shocking green wig, ski goggles and a white dust mask.   Costumes allow anybody to become anyone or anything, and they do.   Superheroes or furry animals, desert squid or neon robots.   Women can be naked or topless without fear of harassment.   Burners just won’t stand for young, drunken fratboys.   The community is a self-regulating system, an entropic organism that shakes out the dust and arises.   While it might seem like I had a bit part in a Mad Maxian post-apocalyptic world (complete with a Thunderdome), there was order in this chaos.  You know that weird friendliness that manifests itself on a hike, when complete strangers say hello to each other even though on the street they wouldn’t look at one another?   The Playa dust intensifies that encounter, amps up the positive energy.  We’re all going through this together, we’re all brothers and sisters.  At least until the Temple burns and the Exodus begins, when you can just make out the sound of a bubble popping.

​My friend Ian is never shy to initiate a philosophical debate.  
​“Is this the real world, or is the real world out there?”   
“Perhaps the real world should be more like Burning Man.”
“It’s all well and good until the food and water runs out, and then it will quickly turn into Lord of the Flies,” replies Bruce.
Making the trek from Canada, hiring an RV, equipping ourselves with food and drinks and costumes and playa gifts, the final tally is not cheap.   Everyone appears to have committed an extraordinary amount of time, money and energy to be here, and so everyone is doing their best to enjoy it.   It’s a brief trip to Utopia, so far outside our comfort zone we forgot what a shower looked like.   That Burning Man only lasts a week is calculated.  A sustainable leave-no-trace festival cannot become permanent, even though there is talk of Burning Man owners buying up surrounding land.   Applying the lessons of Burning Man is a common theme at many workshops.   Taking away the sense of community, of environmental responsibility, of respect for those around you - it can only be a good thing.   But it’s hard to hear those messages in the real world, when marketing and advertising and signs and media keep pounding away at you from all sides.  You’re not happy unless. You’re nothing until.    No wonder Decompression parties are held throughout the year.  

The Temple is the spiritual soul of Burning Man.   There’s so much more to this festival than flame breathing dragon cars, stilt bars and half naked discos.   The Temple is a solemn place to say goodbye to loved ones lost, dreams abandoned, or anything that needs to be released.   People write on the walls, in the cracks, on the wooden platforms.   It’s an outpouring of energy so intense you can feel it throbbing.   Life size photos of Burners lost before their time, tears dripping off the face of people in private confessions, their sad waters hit the wooden Temple, like syrup leaking from a bark tree.   I could only stand and watch, aware and grateful that this week marked a personal beginning and not an end.   It was here, in a camp dome surrounded by my tribe, that I asked Ana to marry me, and it was here, that our lives moved to the next logical step.    The Temple can wait for as long as I can help it.   On Sunday, with thousands already returned to the real world, the Temple is set aflame, designed to become a raging inferno of emotional relief.      We could feel the heat from far away, an unmistakable energy rushing through us, flaming ash soaring into the sky.    It was beautiful, it was sad, it was magic.

​Cherie, our Camp Momma, gave us each a gift.  It’s a small vial filled with the ashes of three Temple Burns, attached to a leather-beaded strap.    I’m looking at it now.  The dust and ashes of the Playa still resonate, even as I wake up each morning, wondering if it was all some weird, hallucinogenic dream.   Perhaps it was.   I don’t know how to describe Burning Man to those who have not been.   Other than to say:  If anything you’ve read above intrigues you, then find out more.   It can be challenging, but then again, the best experiences in life usually are. 

​
* Attendance is now around 70,000. 
** Bliss Dance is now a permanent exhibit outside the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. 

Turtle Snorkel
​
The full-face mask is the snorkel’s first improvement in decades, and allows the user to breathe and speak without anything in their mouths.  There’s a bunch of them on Amazon. I bought this one, ready to introduce my daughter to the wonders of marine life.  Raquel and I board Maui Dive Shop’s Ali’i Nui catamaran in Ma’alaea Harbour for a 3-hour snorkel expedition.   Some strong winds derail the planned sailing to Turtle Point, so we sail to up the coast to a protected reef.    Raquel went bananas on the trampoline-like canopy at the fore of the ship, jumping around like a lunatic.  She ate a piece of celery from the rib n’wings buffet.   We suited up and hopped into the water with a kickboard and life vest.  I help her with the mask,  she takes one look down, and that was the end of my plans for the mask. Not interested..  I don’t care if Humu the tropical fish is dancing the cha-cha down there, I am not putting on that mask again.   Raquel has a way of saying all this with her eyes.  To her credit, I get her into the water a couple times, but she refuses to look down, and only lasts a few minutes.  So we spent a couple hours on a catamaran, playing with a feisty Brazilian granny and her grandkids, talking about what Daddy does and how to take photographs.    I’ve snorkelled the world over, Maui can wait.  Advice for parents:  If you plan on actually seeing or doing anything while with your toddler, you’re in for a disappointment.   If you plan on just hanging out with your happy bouncing kid, it’s smooth sailing all the way.  ​

Ka'anapali Beach Hotel
​
Further up the coast, about a half hour’s drive from Wailea is the second oldest hotel, and certainly the oldest-looking hotel,  on the popular Kaanapali beach strip, the Ka'anapali Beach Hotel.  It bills itself as Maui’s most Hawaiian hotel, which means it is independently owned, has pioneered various cultural programs, and is far removed from the spit-polished gloss of the Fairmont. While the rooms look and feel like a throwback to the 1970’s, the location is steps away from the beach, its whale-shaped pool a hit with the kids, and the well-kept gardens are full of native plumerias bursting with flowers.  Sure the shower drain was blocked and the screen door unhinged, the bathroom tiny and the pillows a little lumpy, but the KBH is far more realistic for our budget, and as Raquel bounced between the two beds, she yelled “Daddy, this is even better than the last hotel!”  The needs of a toddler are tremendously simple: if you can jump between two beds, life is grand.    Staff at the KBH were lovely and their KBH Aloha Passport kids program kept Raquel busy with Hula and ukulele lessons. ​

Mom’s Treat
​
I wanted to treat my wife with something different.  Spas are the typical go-to, but massages tend to blend into each other, a short-term fix.   Catching your first wave on a surfboard however is something you never forget.  I looked after both kids while Ana took a surf lesson with Goofy Foot Surf School in Lahaina.  She used to be a dancer so I figured her first lesson would be way more successful than my first lesson, which consisted of non-stop wipeouts in the cold waters of Tofino, BC.   With Gali teething and especially clingy,  I think Ana would have enjoyed two hours alone in a closet.    I dealt with the kids while she paddled out to a small break where all the surf schools gather.   And there we watched her not only get up the first time, but stay up over and over again, graduating to a few bigger waves.   She was as thrilled as I’d hoped she would be, immediately regretting that she’d waited so long to surf, considering she grew up on a beach in Rio.  Nobody should ever say no to a massage, but if you want to treat your wife in Maui, give her a challenge to overcome in the healing waters of the ocean. And a break from the kids, of course.  ​

Napili Kai Beach Resort
​
By our third hop, we’d realized, as most travellers do, just how much we packed that we simply didn’t need.   We could blame the kids, but the reality is we can only blame ourselves.   Having gone through the worst Vancouver winter in 33 years, we’d quickly forgotten what warm weather feels like, that all we’d need is bathing suits and flip-flops (and diapers, wipes, toys and teddies) .   We packed up and headed north up the coast to the Napili Kai Beach Resort, framing a perfect crescent-shaped, reef-protected beach with toddler friendly waves.   Steps away from the ocean is the resort’s large pool, a hot tub, and a 27-hole putting green course Raquel couldn’t get enough of.   If you enjoy infinity pools like I do, you’ll appreciate that Room 232 in Napili Kai’s Puna Two building has an infinity patio.   The view from the bedroom and kitchen is all ocean, so much so that it feels you’re on a cruise ship. ​

​Meanwhile, the fully equipped modern kitchen quickly taught us this:  if you’re travelling with toddlers, a kitchen is gold.    Oatmeal porridge at 3pm?   A cheese sandwich at midnight?  No problem!   Raquel helped me with the groceries for several nights of simple meals – spaghetti, oven fish, rotisserie chicken, and we saved a bundle.   We even had a blender and ice-maker to craft our own pina coladas. After 12 days of sunshine, a tropical storm hit with sheets of raining falling for 36 hours.   Confined to a room, we were relieved it was this one, where we could watch Netflix movies on TV (thanks to a handy HDMI cable connected to my laptop), stare at the ocean, and let Gali nap in his own space.   Of course, there was still time to play on the beach, explore the grounds, bury Raquel in sand, make sand castles, and splash in the pool.    All three resorts were great, but the self catering flexibility of Napili Kai, and the proximity of its facilities, worked best for our kids.  ​

The Return
​
Relaxed, finally in the flow and on a schedule that works for the kids, it’s time to  dynamite it all to hell.   Air Canada’s return flight from Maui is a red-eye (they don’t call it their Air Canada Rouge service for nothing).  We arrived at the airport two hours early and barely made check-in.  Line-ups, heat, frustration, delays, wrong seat assignments – every hour that dripped by eroded the pleasant memories of Maui.  Finally on the plane, the kids are caged monkeys, eventually collapsing in exhaustion on the unspoken condition that we don’t.  Ana bends herself into a pretzel on the floor with one kid using her as a pillow and the other as a footrest.  Raquel has a full thermonuclear meltdown on arrival, and by the time we get home, she climbs on the couch, puts a blanket over her head, and we don’t hear from her for six hours.  She’s never done this before, and it’s quite impressive. 
A few days later, the colours of Maui are fading (along with Raquel’s mysterious rash) , but our experiences on the island remain bright, the photographs sealing in the memories with a varnish that will only improve and become more valuable with time.    I pick up Raquel from daycare, and ask her: “Did you tell everyone about Maui?”
“No,” she replies. “I forgot to.”  
Toddlers.
She might be over it, but I believe our two weeks on the Valley Isle hardcoded our children with a love for the ocean, island life, the aloha spirit of Hawaii, and an appreciation for warm, sincere hospitality.   It definitely hard-coded a love for travel, for the next sentence out of Raquel’s mouth is: “Where are we going next?” ​

I’ve cage dived with crocodiles, hung off the side of holy mountains in China, and vacationed in Chernobyl, but here’s the truth:  the thought of travelling for the first time with my 4 year old daughter Raquel and 9-month old son Galileo terrified me. Curly-haired Raquel seems to have fallen Obelix-like into a cauldron of Red Bull, she’s a T4 bull in a china shop of tranquillity. Gali is newly teething, crawling, and hasn’t seen a hazard he hasn’t wanted to wrap his gums or baby carrot fingers around.   Still, it’s time to break them in, because with a Dad like me, travel is in their future.  So I thought I’d start somewhere easy and beautiful, spreading a couple weeks over a range of accommodation options.  Expectations are the death of travel, and yet toddlers are particularly gifted when it comes to ensuring that no high hope is trampled under the weight of their hyper-emotional little piggies.    ​

The Flight
​
No matter how great your toddler vacation is, the reality is it will be bookended by a plane ride three stories up from hell.   I fly a lot.  It’s my chance to work, read, watch a movie, daydream at altitude.   A six-hour direct flight from Vancouver to Maui should be nothing.  If the kids sleep.  To stack the odds in my favour,  I reached out to Fly-Tot, who sell an inflatable legroom pillows.  We’d be flying in late at night.    How bad could it be?   Bad.  Real bad.  Gali is chewing on the tray tables and seatbelts (and you know how often they get cleaned).  Raquel is vibrating with kicks and punches.  Rather than sleeping, the kids are using the Fly-Tot as a trampoline.   Playing Frozen on the iPad worked, but it only worked once, and then Raquel... let it go.  Like condemned prisoners at a public hanging, my wife and I gaze into the eyes of fellow toddler parents, dealing with the trauma of their own journey.  Each minute of each hour has the weight of a cannonball.   So frazzled by the experience, I commit a cardinal travel sin and forget our two bottles of duty free liquor – blessed late night Scotch/Baileys escape  - on the plane.  Air Canada’s cleaning staff relieve us of the bottles no more than five minutes after we deplane and I remember the forgotten bag.  “Sorry sir, our cleaners didn’t find anything.”   Aloha to them. ​

Car Rental
​
Welcome to Maui!   Grab our bags and shuttle to the car rental, and spend 45 minutes in a late night line-up.  Now the kids want to sleep.  I push two chairs together and Raquel passes out.  I feel like Parent of the Year.   Get the van, install the car seats, strap in the kids, load in the luggage.  It’s a 45-minute late night drive in the rain to Wailea.  Could anything be worth this? ​

Buffet breakfasts have ruined us.   Raquel quickly gets used to her one mouthful of a dozen different dishes, and miso soup is now a breakfast staple.   We tag team feeding both kids as Gali singlehandedly supports the birdlife of Hawaii who gather beneath the snow of egg that falls from his high chair.   Staff give us crayons for the kids each morning, and Gali’s favourite breakfast dish becomes the colour Red.  Hours turn to days as we rotate between the pool, suite and beach.   Raquel is too young for Kea Lani’s Keiki Kids Club, but she can drop into the stocked daycare-like facilities in the afternoon, when Gali is napping and the sun is too strong.  There were so many toys I almost cried when we walked into the room for the first time. We explore the grounds, make a run to the nearest supermarket, buy the only two things we didn’t pack while realizing we won’t need most of the things we did.  ​

Road Trip
​
The bucket list drive in Maui is the road to Hana, a hairpin-winding track alongside soaring ocean cliffs.    We made three turns and turned around, avoiding the projectile backseat vomit we knew would follow.  This pretty much ruled out a drive to the Haleakala volcano crater too, which I’ll have to get to once the kids are a little older.  We did drive to Makena Beach where Raquel flew a kite for the first time.  I brought it from home and she didn’t want to do anything except fly that kite.  She flew it for exactly 34 seconds, and never wanted to see it again.  We drove up to Twin Falls and got some great photos amidst the giant bamboo and dual cascades.     The Banyen Tree in Lahaina is unlike any tree I’ve ever seen, sporting 16 trunks and a block-wide canopy.  We ate lunch in the Flatbread Company in Paia, after which I lost my wife and daughter in the shops.   Raquel was having an allergic to reaction to her all-natural sunblock or the heat or the seawater, or something the Internet told us could probably be treated with a little Benedryl.  New parents would spend a day in a local hospital, only to be told to use a little Benedryl.   Fortunately we’re over the paranoia and worry that accompanies the firstborn.   Instead we visit Baby Beach where the full-face snorkel mask I bought for Raquel is thoroughly enjoyed by all other kids on the beach.   They tell me it works like a charm. ​

Los Angeles traffic feels like a stuffy nose.   Sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic on the 405, or the 10, or the 91, you start wishing for a cosmic tissue to blow away the insufferable congestion.    Eventually the jams peter out on the I-15, disappearing on Highway 79 South altogether.  At last, some tumbleweed!  My car slices through rolling brown hills that seem familiar from Hollywood westerns.  Up ahead is the Warner Springs Airstrip, a saloon for modern sky sailors.    We are here to tick off sailplaning, or sky sailing, or soaring, or whatever you want to use to describe the act of gliding a fibreglass dragonfly in the dreamy California sky. ​

Much like hanggliding or paragliding, sailplane pilots hunt warm pockets of air called thermals in order to gain elevation.  Each pocket of warm air results in a dramatic upwards swing.  Safely strapped in, there’s not enough room in the cockpit for too much bouncing around from the turbulence.    Air gushes in from breathing holes on the sides, which I open up all the way in case of motion sickness.   This increases the noise level, but takes nothing away the thrill of pure flight.  No engines, no fuel – just air currents, speed and grace.
 “Do you want to see what this baby can do?”  asks the pilot. 
That’s usually a rhetorical question, one I’ve been asked several times researching this Bucket List, and one I have never yet answered in the affirmative.  Dave Cronin suddenly nosedives the sailplane and there is so much blood rushing to my head it might just explode. He's pulling a David Cronenberg!  ​

You know that moment when you’re on a rollercoaster and wonder if you’re going to fall out? When you pull tricks in a sailplane, that moment doesn’t stop.   The speed and pressure is incredible, increased as the pilot points the nose upwards, giving us the sensation of negative G-force.  Weightless for a moment, his walkie-talkie floats above our heads.  Worth noting at this point is the volume of my screaming, and the fact that I am wondering if vomit can cleanly squeeze through the diameter of the breathing holes.   We level out, and after a twenty-five minute ride, land on the runway, speed along to the main office, and come to an abrupt stop.   Gravity feels especially heavy, but there’s some relief when my feet touch the ground.   Unfortunately, I’ll have to use those feet for the drive back to Los Angeles, where soaring is strictly reserved for the imaginations of would-be starlets. ​

​For more info, including directions, weather and rates, visit: www.skysailing.com

Come December, these are the world’s three most beautiful cities, the cool kids at the back of Planet Earth’s bus.   They all have pristine beaches basking in the glow of a gorgeous summer, fuelled by an urban population all shook up and ready to pop, not to mention thousands of foreign invaders with no other purpose than to party their tans off.  In Rio, it is traditional to wear all white on the Copacabana, where around two million people gather to watch the fireworks.   Cape Town has its own smaller carnival, as thousands flock to the streets and beaches for outdoor parties, raves, and live music.   I’ve witnessed the fireworks spectacle in Sydney on New Years Eve, duplicated at various points along the inlet, observing how locals excitedly judge the annual theme and pyro performance. Hold on to your purse and wallets, take a deep breath, and dive right in.  ​

Millions will gather on this frigid, bone chilling night, celebrating the end of yet another year in which humanity somehow avoided destroying itself.   It all looks very fun on television at home, where you can gather with your friends in comfort, refuel your eggnog from the kitchen, and use a bathroom without strategies and maps.  My own memories of Trafalgar Square on New Years Eve recall extreme cold, overwhelming crowds, belligerent Scandinavians, and tons of garbage.   Sure, it’s great to be in the world’s most hip and happening cities on New Years Eve, but as with all the suggestions on this list, your immediate company makes all the difference when the ball drops.   Unlike the summer beach cities, it’s a more tense in the northern hemisphere, so dress warm, smile lots, and be sure to empty your bladder whenever you get the chance.  ​

​Your Friend’s Place / In the Lounge with Your Family

Much like our other commoditized joys for celebration, the spirit of New Years Eve has been waning in recent years.   It is a time to come together with friends, reflect on the joys, sorrows, triumphs and highlights of the previous year, and make blessings for the year to come.   You can find an excuse to go clubbing (or party to excess) on any night of the year, but tonight, as the 08 rolls into the 09, we have a closet to hang all we that have to be grateful for.  We have an opportunity to share our thoughts and dreams with those who matter most.    Take it from me:  If you are with the people you love, you are not missing anything, anywhere on New Years Eve.   Wherever you are is exactly where you’re meant to be. ​

Here's to another inspiring, fun and safe year of travel. ​

Modern sport is a far more civilized substitute for millennia of constant warfare.  The world's major events are not only wild celebrations, they're a chance to discover any destination at its festive best.  I enjoy my sport, but although I enjoy the Die Hard movies, I wouldn't consider myself a die-hard fan.   Still, here are just some of the sporting events on my bucket list. ​

The four main events or ATP Grand Slams are held in Melbourne, Paris, London and New York.  Each tournament offers something unique for the tennis traveller.  Melbourne is a sports-mad city, enjoying scorching temperatures often resulting in heat-breaks for the players. The crowd loves the underdogs, and  the shade of their umbrellas.  Roland Garros in Paris is played on red clay, with the French always rooting for homegrown players.  Join them, and you might find a great improvement in service!  Wimbledon is the most traditional of the Slams, suffused with strawberries and cream, champagne, and overnight line-ups.   New York is the most daring, with arguably the most vocal crowd, and stadiums packed with celebrities. ​

Speed, money and power converge in the world’s richest sport, the highest class of auto racing, precision, technology and driving skill.   There are between 17 and 20 FIA Grand Prix’s held each year, in destinations as diverse as Malaysia, Hungary, Brazil, and Turkey.  For weeks before, cities like Shanghai, Singapore and Abu Dhabi get caught up in the frenzy, wooing massive crowds cheering on their Ferrari, McLaren and Red Bull favourites.   Billions of dollars are spent on cars every year, capable of achieving speeds of up to 360 km/hr with an ear shattering roar.  My pick is Monte Carlo, home of a famed street circuit lined with stylish crowds, overlooked by the world’s wealthy elite.   Indy Car and NASCAR races also deliver their own thrills and atmosphere.  Don’t forget to pack a pair of earplugs! ​

Every four years, over a four-week period, the best national teams in the world join together to battle for the greatest prize in football.  For a sport that crosses the widest of social and economic divides, the World Cup Finals is nothing short of a religious holiday.  Business shut, traffic vanishes, and nearly a billion people tune in the most watched sporting event in the world.  In 2014, soccer-mad Brazil once again hosts the finals, the biggest sporting event in the world.  It’s a unique moment in the country's modern history, where adventurous travellers will be able to experience the best of the country. ​

Both the Summer and Winter Olympic Games is a wonderful opportunity to celebrate the world coming together.  Host cities spend spend billions on construction and infrastructure upgrades to host what is effectively a non-stop party.    Being able to support Team Canada (and Team South Africa) is secondary to the spirit of the event.   ​

The four major golf tournaments create a sporting mecca for both players and fans.    The US Masters in Augusta, the Open Championship in St Andrews, the US Open and PGA Championship bring the world’s best players together, along with those that would pay good money to see men hit little white balls into little shallow holes.  Securing a ticket is expensive, or sometimes not even possible.  The Masters only makes tickets available to club patrons, but you can enter a lottery to see Tiger Woods on the practice rounds.    If golf is your ticket, it might be easier to attend one of the less prestigious Open tournaments, held in over two-dozen countries annually. ​

Following the pro-surfing or windsurfing circuit combines two crucial elements for the weary sport traveller: the atmosphere of a major sporting event, with the bonus of being on some of the most beautiful beaches in the world.    Throw in string bikinis and tanned hunky surfers, and one could do worse than hop on the ASP World Tour, annually visiting top beach towns in Brazil, Tahiti, Australia, South Africa, Spain and France. ​

​Cheese Rolling at Cooper’s Hill
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Take a wheel of Double Gloucester cheese and roll it down a steep, muddy hill.    Fun I know, but the cheese doesn’t have to stop there.  Allow 20 guys at a time to chase the wheel to the bottom.   By chase, I mean a head over shoulders, slipping, sliding, bone crunching, joint smashing descent into certain physical discomfort.   After several rounds of competition, the fastest guy to the bottom wins great honour, and presumably a lot of cheese.   Dating back 200 years, this annual event in England’s Cotswold region has become so popular organizers have had to cancel it in 2010 for safety reasons.  That’s OK, you can always head over to Whistler, BC, which has started it’s own Canadian Cheese Rolling Festival.

​World Toe Wrestling Championship
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There’s no reason to trip over the puns at this unique event, which attracts the feet of competitors from around the world.  Opponents toe-off during a toe-down, with the goal to force each other’s feet off the toe-dium.  If your little piggies are getting slaughtered, you can forfeit by crying “toe much!”  Seriously.    Rules are governed by the World Toe Wrestling Organization, and champion Toeminator Paul Beech is, I imagine, someone you do not want to get into a round of footsies with.  The event takes place at the Bentley Brooke Inn in Ashbourne, everyone is welcome, and all proceeds go to charity.   Toe-tally worth it then.

The Naked Festival
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The origins of the Hadaki Matsuri date back to the 7th century, a communal act of ritual cleansing and purification.    There are variations around Japan, taking place in summer or winter, but the gist of it is that men get naked (save for optional loin cloth and sandals) and go bananas. The Shinotoko, a highly honoured Naked Man, walks amongst the crowd who, with one touch, can expel your bad energy.   The crowd heave their way towards the Shintoko in the hope of touching his skin, while officials throw mud or water to calm and cleanse the masses.  Nothing gets rid of bad vibes like being naked with thousands of other guys, all going bezerk.   Nothing. ​

​Rolling Wood: Onbashira and Danjiri Matsuri are two different festivals with a similar premise. Large wooden objects are rolled, dragged and pushed through crowded streets.  Danjiri are decorated wooden carts built by proud carpenters demonstrating their skill, which does not extend to cart pulling, since carts often reach tremendous speeds, topple over, and occasionally kill someone.  Onbashira takes place in the Nagano region, as tall trees are cut down and rolled down a mountain to revitalize an ancient shrine.   Huge rolling logs, steep hills, large crowds – what could go wrong?

​Never have I been so thankful for the existence of a low wall.

Bullfighting on a Rope
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Think running with bulls is impressive?   On the island of Terceira in the Azores, they let their kids run with bulls on the beach!   Bulls form the backbone of the annual Festival of St John.  I experienced this first hand, including a thrilling bolt down a boxed-in street as a 600kg monster charged ahead in his quest to make mincemeat of anyone standing in his way. Unlike Spain, where bulls are killed in bullfighting, Portuguese bullfighting-on-a-rope spares the creature’s life.     Several men hold back the bull from a safe distance connected with a long rope.   Kids run safely into the sea, while on the streets, only the bravest men taunt the bull by running up close enough to touch it.   Braver men than I, I might add. ​

Baby Jumping
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In the Spanish village of Castrillo de Mercia, locals celebrate Corpus Christi by taking a running jump.   Harmless enough, unless you place half a dozen helpless babies beneath them, which on a list like this, you bet they do.  El Colacho, as it is known, dates back to 1620, when people were also known to burn witches at the stake. This tradition continues however, as men dressed like the devil jump over rows of babies, laying bewildered on a mattress.  It’s a symbolic attempt to chase away evil, and clear a path for a healthy life.  Providing the jumper clears the mattress, of course. ​

​La Tomatina
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50,000 people. 100 tons of overripe tomatoes.   A tradition that encourages throwing tomatoes at everybody and anybody as hard as you can?  La Tomatina takes place the final Wednesday of August every year in the Spanish town of Bunul.  Travel tip: Goggles help with the acidic tomato juice running into your eyes, and  don’t wear an expensive suit. If you’d prefer to change the colour, the Italian festival of Ivrea uses oranges instead of tomatoes.   And elsewhere, children go hungry.   Just saying….

Finland deserves their own entry, because their festivals are so wonderfully bizarre you have to give credit where it’s due. ​

Wife Carrying World Championships
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Its origins supposedly date back to that marvelously romantic custom of attacking a village and carrying away your future wife.   He who runs fastest, or with the best technique (like the Estonian legs around the neck maneuver) presumably outran an enraged father not too far behind.   The event takes place every year in Sonkajärvi, as competitors race across a 252m obstacle course.  The wife does not have to be your own, but must be at least 17 years old, and weigh a minimum of 49kgs.    Every summer, competitors come from all over the world, and the sport has spread to the United States, where apparently it is a lot simpler than dealing with divorce lawyers. ​

Finnish Sauna World Championships
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If you can’t stand the heat, don’t compete. Sauna is deeply entrenched in Finnish culture, so it makes sense that the country would host the World Championships.  Starting off at a cool 110C, water is poured on the rocks every 30 seconds until there is but one person remaining, able to walk out, unassisted.   Everyone else presumably melts away.   Competitors from 20 countries now attend this annual event in the town of Heinola, although naturally Finns dominate.  I once spent two minutes on the top shelf of a public sauna in Helsinki, and saliva started to boil in my mouth.  Yes. That is true. ​

World Cell Phone Throwing Championships
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There’s a fuzzy connection between the country that gave us Nokia, and professional cell phone throwing competitions. But hey, this sport is dialed in.  Depending on the event, athletes are given the same phone, and must throw the phone behind their shoulder as far as they can.  A freestyle event awards points for creativity (no word if you get extra points for hitting the idiot who can’t explain why your roaming charges tally the GDP of Ghana).    The World Championships take place every August in Savonlinna, and millions of people around the world are practicing every day, they just don’t know it. ​

Mosquito Killing World Championships
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I’ve seen the mosquitoes in the Finnish summer.  They’re more like bloodsucking vultures, hunting in packs.   The WKMC takes place annually in the town of Pelkosenniemi. No chemicals or machines allowed.   Competitors only have five minutes to extract revenge, even as the mosquitoes extract their blood.  There’s also a mosquito swatting event held in Italy, and probably at every lake cottage in Canada during the summer months. ​