Southern Ontario’s Prince Edward County is populated with grape growers, cheese makers and soon one more outpost for stressed-out condo dwellers: the Drake Devonshire Inn. Connected with Toronto's Drake Hotel, an artsy urban mainstay, the inn will trade big city hustle for big lake vistas, while keeping cottage goers in style (as you can see from these sneak peek photos and more). (The Wellington property opens Sept. 15)

Chris Loane, the new innkeeper for the Drake Devonshire and an urban escapee himself, shares five ways to experience this popular county in my new Insider for The Globe and Mail.

Happy hour sounds so cruise-ship, but, in Montreal, it’s just part of the bon vivant lifestyle. The city’s “5 à 7” is less about cheap drinks and more about starting the night out right. 

In this story for up! magazine, and armed with a shortlist of 17 recommendations (a shortlist!), I tackled the tough assignment of finding five local favourites where the party starts early -- and sometimes just carries on. Santé!

The Fairmont's Le Château Montebello is not your average Canadian cottage. In fact, it’s said to be the biggest log cabin in the world. And as such the expansive river-front property situated between Ottawa and Montreal offers biking, horse-back riding and drinking of cocktails at the piano bar. (Well, does your cottage have a grand piano?) 

But there's also much to discover in the surrounding town of Montebello. This is my story in Vacay.ca about exploring this unique Quebec getaway. 

Spanish sommelier Ferran Centelles can still recall the first aroma he recognized in a glass of wine – rose petals in a bottle of Muscat from Penedes. Since then, he’s gone on to identify and recommend many more, as a sommelier at the famed elBulli, and now as a teacher and Spanish wine specialist.

In my new Insider in The Globe and Mail, Centelles shares his favourite wine-and-food stops in Barcelona.

What makes Rome such a great culinary destination is that it is a working, living and eating city, says Elizabeth Minchilli, a food writer whose latest book, Eating Rome is making its way to presses.
Which means that despite its huge popularity among travellers, you can still stumble upon places favourited by locals. 
In my new Globe Insider, Minchilli recommends a Roman neighbourhood packed with culinary flavour. 

Kids seem to have a certain way of keeping track of time. I think this originates in the family road trip, as in, Are We There Yet? Are We There Yet Now? How About Now? 

These six road trips featured in the summer issue of Today's Parent nip that in the bud with itineraries that keep the peace in the backseat. Read about my family's journey along Quebec's St. Lawrence North Shore, a road trip from Quebec City into the Charlevoix region that's full of adventurous stops of whale watching, suspension-bridge crossing and cheese-curd consuming. (Hey, who says Quebec agritourism isn't an adventure?) Click on Classic Road trips  to start planning your trip into other corners of Canada with the help of my fellow travel writers. 

PS: This was my first byline as a "mom of three." Which perhaps is rather appropriate as my son looked at my luggage tag the other day and said: Where's your name? It doesn't spell, M-o-m. 

Illustration by the talented Patricia Cavazzini

There are many reasons for big silences between blog updates. Mine was a broken wrist. I slipped on a sheet of ice, aka the Ottawa sidewalk, one January morning. And that one-second tumble lead to weeks in a cast, surgery and physiotherapy. It also lead to a new relationship with voice-activated dictation software, aka Dragon Dictate. 

Hmm, how should I describe our relationship? Probably like the communication struggles of many real-world relationships: hopeful and frustrating and sometimes funny. The software would type out what I said, requiring me to sometimes enunciate like Dory from Finding Nemo. Dragon's intent is to improve the more you use it and it helped me get a lot of text on to the screen. But there were plenty of miscommunications along the way. Below, some examples of what I said, and what Dragon typed. 

1. physio = Fabio
2. more dessert = Mozart
3. smokey lagers = smokey loggers
4. cheers = chairs
5. texting = text eating
6. physio = Fabio
7. more dessert = Mozart
8. Winterlude = winter dude
9. oyster shucking = moisture shocking
10. event planners = vampires
11. xoxo = ex oh
12. So I'll be in touch = Swabian touch
13. depanneurs = date banners
14. Mickey Rourke = Mickey work
15. Salzburg = Sal's Berg
16. the scenery alone = the serial loan
17. realtors = real tears

"Oh, Dragon," I would mutter and try again. At the very least, the experience spiced up my travel writing. Although I must confess I have yet to feel the caress of a Swabian touch or locate Sal's Berg on a map.

Earlier this year, I was at a conference of travel writers in Charlottetown, PEI. There were delegates from South Korea, Australia and Mexico. And then there was Tim Johnson from Toronto. He, I heard in elevator chatter, travelled a lot. I was curious. I too have the enviable job of writing about new places. But what's it like to travel all the time? To travel like Tim? So we caught up in a coffee shop and he dished on roommates, jet lag and his passion for a white noise machine:


How much do you really travel?
I travel about 300 days of year. Throughout the year a typical amount of time for me to be home between trips is one to two days, sometimes less. I had a time this year where I flew back from Kuala Lumpur via Hong Kong and had less than 12 hours before I had to fly to Yellowknife for a fishing trip. I really only have one portion of the year when I’m home for any significant amount of time and that’s usually around Christmas. I really just relax and just get all my couch potato moments at once.

What’s it like to travel that much?
It’s exhausting, definitely. Jet lag is unpleasant and a big part of my life. But the travel is also wonderful because every day is filled with new things: meeting new people, learning about their lives, how they live, seeing new places. I have a few favourite places but mostly I don’t travel to the same place twice. 

So where is home for you?
I rent a townhouse with two other guys in Toronto. They’re both there all the time. I’m the only one who’s travelling like this. One’s a lawyer. The other one, I’m not sure what the other one does. I am the perfect roommate. I actually pay a base amount of rent, and then I pay a per day rate.

What’s your lineup for the next three months?
I go to Italy after this. Maui and Molokai. I may have a week off after that, during which time I may go down to Michigan and take in a football game. I’ve got Fiji after that. I also have Turkey and Botswana that I have to fit in somewhere. And I have to get down to Brazil because I have a deadline to write about Manaus. And those are the trips I know about.

With all this travel do you still consider Canada home?
Yes, absolutely. I think I am more aware of my Canadianness now than when I was actually in Canada for long periods of time because travelling this much you get to see what Canada looks like in the eye of the international community. 

Is there somthing you always travel with? Canadian pins?
I remember being in an orphanage in Kenya earlier this year and handing out the pins and they were a huge hit. I never leave home without my laptop and I have a travel alarm clock that also makes white noise. The fact that I’m often sleeping in seven different beds on seven different nights, the fact that I can have some consistency like that is helpful.

Hobbits, golden rings, sheep. Yes, New Zealand is all that. But what do locals love best?

Here in my Globe and Mail Insider, rugby star Tim Bateman (captain of the Maori All Blacks and midfield back for the Hurricanes) reveals his favourites stops in Wellington.