The British national tourism agency issued some guidelines on dealing with foreigners in preparation of the 2012 Summer Olympics.   According to them, extra patience is needed when dealing with people from India, Mexicans do not want to discuss current affairs and Canadian tourists will often be annoyed at being mistakenly identified as American. Personally, [...]

After Campeche, we spent a night in the awful Playa Del Carmen. It probably would have been better had it not been raining since we could have gone to the beach or visit Cozumel, but alas, it was raining very hard. The day was spent walking down the vastly overpriced touristy strips which quoted prices [...]

Last week, The Huffington Post proclaimed Toronto the new capital of cool.  It’s nice to see my hometown getting some positive exposure although I’m not sure if I agree with the article.  Perhaps I’m just suffering from the regular ennui that occurs from having lived somewhere for so long;  it seems I’m always looking to [...]

CBC News – Nova Scotia – Italian tourists end up in wrong Sydney. An Italian couple ended up in Sydney, Nova Scotia, Canada rather than Sydney, NSW, Australia.  The incident reminded me of a story that my former boss told me.  He had to go to San Jose, California for work so, thinking he was [...]

My friend and I had decided to visit Campeche, a city anointed with UNESCO World Heritage status in 1999 for its well-preserved city walls and colonial architecture, prior to going to Mexico. We decided to go there rather than Merida, the famous gateway to Chichen Itza which we had decided to skip. Campeche is indeed [...]