Vermont Announces At-Par Lodging Promotion for Canadians
Close to 2 million Canadians visit Vermont each year, spending approximately $200 million on tourism. To give Canadians even more incentive this ski season, the Vermont Department of Tourism and Marketing has teamed with Toronto-based Porter Airlines to offer a lodging promotion where the price of the room is the same in American and Canadian dollars. Currently, $1 US dollar is $1.24 Canadian dollar. So you’ll be saving $24 Canadian for every $100 of lodging. More than 20 lodging properties in Burlington, Stowe, and Mad River Valley are offering Porter Airlines’ passengers this discount, including Hotel Vermont in Burlington and Green Mountain Inn in Stowe. The offer is good through May 3, 2018.
French Polynesia will always hold a special place in my heart. It was here and other South Pacific locales like Fiji and the Cook Islands that I received my start in travel writing, penning stories for Rodale’s Scuba Diving and resort reviews for Bride’s Magazine. In 1994, Lisa and I went on a freighter cruise to the Marquesas Islands that still to this day is one of the highlights of my career in travel. But you don’t have to deliver food to the locals to savor French Polynesia. Go in style aboard the m/s Paul Gauguin, a luxury cruise ship that has been plying these waters for 20 years. 
The parking lot at the Blithewold estate in Bristol is overflowing on this chilly day in late April. I walk around the pink blooms of the Japanese star-magnolia tree and under the signature Japanese cedar that stands guard in front of the massive stone mansion. That’s when I get my first glimpse of the soft yellow hues glowing from a vast garden, stemming from row after row of daffodils. Young girls dressed as fairies run down the aisles, butterfly wings attached to their backs and colorful ribbons in their hair flowing in the wind. I follow their cue and enter a pasture coated with morning dew to find countless families happily ensconced within the centuries-old stone walls. A harpist plays as kids create papier-mâché flowers, blow bubbles, and dance around a Maypole. I half-expect to see nymphs lounging in a nearby pond of water lilies.
Yellowstone National Park, London, Paris, Switzerland, Kenya, Tanzania, and Costa Rica all receive a worthy mention in my latest story for Global Traveler on the 
Singapore-based Amanresorts group has announced that their lone Caribbean property,