Besides spectacular scenery and great shopping, Vancouver also has the best restaurant scene in Canada. What makes it perfect is its diversity. Food lovers need not look far to sample international fare from all corners of the globe. Here’s the lowdown on what’s new and noteworthy in Vancouver. 

Ever since I heard my Grade 3 teacher recite Robert Service’s “The Cremation of Sam McGee,” I have always wanted to visit the Yukon. So when I got married a few years ago and considered places to honeymoon, I was delighted to discover that my husband had always wanted to explore Canada’s north too. Hence our two-week road trip to Whitehorse. 

Why a 19th-century invention should become the 21st-century people-mover of choice? The joys of train travel.

In the 1850s, a wave of English adventure tourists followed the lead of their upper class and crossed the Mediterranean — drawn by reports of lost civilizations, strange peoples and even stranger customs in North Africa and the Middle East. 

I punch out of my down sleeping bag, gasping in the Yukon’s frigid February night air. On the tarp next to me, two Muktuk Adventure guides remain peacefully encased in their sleeping bags, a light dusting of frost coating their cocoons and only a fist-size breathing hole open above their noses.

Travelling by cruise ship is one of the most exciting and relaxing ways to see the world. Once you try it, you’ll fall in love with the unparalleled onboard hospitality, rousing evening entertainment and staggering array of shore excursions.

Spice Berry Crush and Apple Lavender Cider recipe. Plus an audio interview with Hotel Art’s award-winning mixologist Christina Mah

When the Vancouver 2010 Olympics kick off February 12, Albertans won’t only be cheering as our homegrown athletes march into the stadium, we’ll be raising the roof for Jean Grand-Maître

Looking for a gift for the backcountry adventurer in your life? Pick up a copy of Lynn Martel’s Expedition to the Edge

Don’t spend another day bored out of your mind. A list of things to do around Alberta this winter. 

My mission to understand why Alberta has become so prominent in one our country’s favourite sports begins in high July, on a glorious 32-degree Celsius day with neither cloud nor breeze. Summertime just doesn’t get any sweeter. Yep, it’s a great day for curling.

A roadtrip from Vancouver to Port Angeles, Washington

Nothing polishes up a city like preparations for a royal visit, a world’s fair or, most superlatively, the Olympics.

Students from Briar Hill Elementary School started the “Idling Gets You Nowhere” campaign in 2007 to encourage parents to turn off their vehicles while waiting outside the school. The students patrolled entrances with their clipboards, tracking the number of idling vehicles. They put up notices on parking signs, in the school newsletter and at an open house. By the next school year, the students were seeing results.

A few examples of satisfied travel medical insurance customers should suffice to illustrate that even a daytrip outside Alberta without coverage can be costly. They include a woman bitten by a temperamental house cat in Texas who spent $2,200 in IV solutions and tetanus shots, a man who suffered a heart attack and ran up $125,000 in medical bills and a holidaymaker who dislocated his shoulder while sleeping and was dinged U.S.$4,000 in “repair” costs.

I’ve always wondered what goes on in Norway. It’s never in the news, which must mean nothing bad ever happens there. I know it’s where the ’80s pop band A-ha came from, and that all the Norwegian women I have met in my travels possessed both superior intellect and supermodel stature. I figure any country producing such women must be doing something right. Also, I know about the Vikings.

Letters to the editor of Westworld magazine

What’s there to say about Banff that every Albertan doesn’t already know? 

The economic downturn has forced many Albertans to make cuts to their household budgets. But recently this personal-finance exercise has turned risky, as insurance coverage – whether for home, business or health – increasingly ends up on the chopping block