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A Good Budget Choice for Toronto

I was in Toronto this May on my way to Niagara-on-the-Lake for a little biking, vino, and theater at the Shaw Festival, I was roaming around the city and found an intimate 6-room B&B called the Baldwin Village Inn. Located on Baldwin Street, a block known for its variety of good ethnic restaurants, and only a 2-block walk to the AGO, you’re in a great locale to check out the city. Rates start at $90 CDN a night, including continental breakfast, and reviews on TripAdvisor are excellent. 
 

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Paddle Maine’s Allagash River this September

Mention the Allagash River to a canoeist and his eyes suddenly become moist and dreamy as he inevitably responds, “Yeah, I’d like to go there someday.” The river has somehow attained legendary stature. Perhaps it’s the way the blue streak of water slips off the map of America’s northern fringes, remote and isolated, hundreds of miles from the nearest metropolis. Or maybe it’s the legacy of writer, philosopher, and inveterate traveler Henry David Thoreau, who ventured down the waterway a mere 155 years ago, waxing lyrically about the last great frontier in the East in his book, The Maine Woods. Whatever the reason, the 92-mile Allagash Wilderness Waterway continues to lure 10,000-plus paddlers to its shores every summer, turning farfetched dreams into reality. Paddle the Allagash in September like I did and you’ll be treated to moose in heat, fall foliage colors, and no bugs. Go with a trusted guide like Mahoosuc Guide Service, who led me down the West Branch of the Penobscot River for this Sierra Magazine story. They still have openings on their September 24-29 trip, $1250 per person all-inclusive. 

 
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Andaz Mayakoba Makes its Debut on Mexico’s Riviera Maya

A 40-minute drive from the Cancun International Airport, the stretch of beach in Mayakoba is the best on the Yucatan Peninsula. So it’s no surprise that the community is already home to such upscale hoteliers as the Rosewood, Banyan Tree, and Fairmont. Now you can add the Andaz Mayakoba to that list. The resort opened its 214-room property last week on a secluded stretch of beach. The property features several outdoor pools, a spa with eight treatment rooms, and a gym with a yoga studio, lap pool, and fitness area. Guests can also explore the nearby ruins of Tulum and access the 18-hole El Camaleón golf course designed by PGA legend Greg Norman. Since Lisa is a Virtuoso-aligned travel agent, all clients who book with us will receive an upgrade on arrival if available, daily breakfast for two, and a $120 credit to use at the resort.

 
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My Favorite Fall Foliage Travels—Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, Empire, Michigan

Head to the Grand Traverse Bay area, a four-hour drive northwest of Detroit, in the autumn months for a weekend, and you’ll be treated to far more than a fun frolic on a Great Lake. Slow down and explore the region at a slow pace on bike or on two feet and you’ll find diverse terrain, from the shaded wetlands of the Grass River Natural Area to the rolling countryside of the Leelanau Peninsula to the steep dunes of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, the largest sand dunes west of the Sahara Desert. The towering slopes of sand, some as high as 440 feet, slide steeply to the shores of Lake Michigan. Stroll on the 1.5-mile Cottonwood Trail and the dunes look like bowls of sand that only a giant could drink from. No wonder Good Morning America just named Sleeping Dunes the most beautiful locale in America.
 

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Norwegian Airlines to Offer Low-Cost Flights from Logan

Great news out of Boston where Norwegian Airlines announced this week that they will be offering reasonably priced flights to London’s Gatwick Airport, Oslo, and Copenhagen, starting May 2016. Flights are already up for next summer and costs are as low as $545 round-trip to London, including all taxes. Also under the radar is the fact that they’re offering direct flights from Logan to Martinique and Guadeloupe, starting this winter. I checked this morning and was delighted to find the price to Guadeloupe over popular Christmas Week is $517 per person direct. Flights on JetBlue and other carriers that fly direct to the Caribbean from Boston during that same time period are already well over $1200 per person. So this is great news for travelers. The competition will hopefully result in other carriers lowering their costs. 
 
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Latest Boston Story in Alaska Airlines Inflight Publication

Over the years, I think more friends have found my stories in inflight pubs than any other outlet, including the hundreds of articles I wrote for Boston Globe, Yankee, and Men’s Journal. Yesterday, I received a text from a college buddy flying to Seattle on Alaska Airlines who spotted my feature on Boston (the piece starts on page 90). If you’re planning to head to New England this fall to see the foliage, the story is a good primer on the city. It includes many of my favorite sites, restaurants, and hotels including a must-stop at the MFA, dining at Shojo, and spending the night at Kenmore Square’s Hotel Commonwealth. Downstairs from Hotel Commonwealth you’ll find Eastern Standard, the restaurant our family came to celebrate after my son’s high school graduation. So rest assured that I’m giving you all my insider picks. 

 
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May Birdwatching at Mount Auburn

By the time my wife and I arrive at Cambridge’s Mount Auburn Cemetery at 6:30 am, the parking lot around the fountain is already full and minivans with birders from across New England are streaming in. We find a spot and stroll over to where we find our guide for the morning, Carol Decker, Director of Mass Audubon’s Ipswich River Wildlife Sanctuary. As if on cue, a red-tailed hawk flies overhead while to our left, a vibrant Baltimore oriole sits on a branch, twig in beak. While I’m always thrilled to see a hawk, especially as a diversion from writing when the large bird rests on a branch outside my office window, it is the orioles, scarlet tanagers, vireos, and the queen of neotropical migrants, the warbler, that has coaxed us to leave our pillows prematurely and arrive at this Cambridge birding hotspot. Wintering in the Caribbean, Mexico, Central America, even South America, these enticing songbirds make their way north to New England and Canada to breed in the summer months. 
 
Mass Audubon schedules most of their spring walks at Mount Auburn the first two weeks of May, when the warbler migration reaches its peak. Anyone with a love of nature is urged to sign up, even a novice birder like myself. Sure I have a trusty pair of binoculars sitting next to me as I write, to savor that brightly yellow goldfinch when he inadvertently comes across my bird feeder, but I don’t memorize bird calls or carry a checklist. Perhaps that’s the reason why my wife and I found this outing last May to be so special. The colors on the backs and bellies of these birds were so spellbinding that I found it to be the aviary equivalent of going snorkeling in the Caribbean.
 

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