Stocking Stuffer No. 2—The Red Bandanna Travel Book, The Medicine of Traveling
I read this slender memoir/self-help travel book on my train ride back from New York to Boston. When I finished, I wish I had taken the book in sections, working on the assignments the author Joanne Socha had created at the end of most chapters. This is a unique book that’s meant to be savored at a slow pace. Socha is a travel advisor that I know through my affiliation with Virtuoso and Largay Travel. She knows firsthand the anxiety most people have before and during a trip. In fact, no one I know is stress-free when it comes to travel. I have bridge phobia and I’m neurotic about getting to the airport early to catch my flight. But that never stopped me nor does it stop Joanne, who follows her dream as she travels the globe, visiting the destinations on her wish list. What I loved about this book is that Socha shares her vulnerability, overcoming adversity, so when she’s finally snorkeling in the Maldives in a sublime blissful state, you realize she earned it. She deserved to be there and so do you. Just remember to do your homework!
We’re headed to Niagara-on-the-Lake this morning to start our bike trip. Yesterday, I was fortunate to spend Victoria Day in one of my favorite cities to dine, Toronto. No need to travel the world to find varying culture when you can simply walk around Toronto’s ethnically diverse neighborhoods. Start with dim sum in Chinatown, where we dined at Rol San on Spadina (worth the wait). Or grab a traditional walnut cake in Koreatown, head to Greektown for helpings of saganaki and lamb souvlaki, order a cappuccino at one of the outdoor cafés in Little Italy, find chicken tikka masala at the Indian Bazaar in Little India, and dine on your fair share of pierogies and borscht in Little Poland, or “Ronceys,” as the locals call it. If you’re looking for more innovative multicultural fare, sample the sublime Duck Egg dish at 
Every night after dinner at all 
2 ½ hours later, we pulled the canoe out and hiked the remaining 2 miles to the 
Taveuni, Fiji, is one of those places like Palau or the Red Sea that is discussed only in clandestine conversations between avid scuba divers. They come here to dive the renowned Rainbow Reef, whose intricate corals and myriad fish provide divers with a kaleidoscopic view of the sea. Add white-tip sharks, sea turtles, and manta rays to the equation and you have one of the finest diving experiences in the world. 
Take a chunk of Vermont and plop it down in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and voila, you have Prince Edward Island. This sylvan setting lends itself well to road biking, especially in the spring when the summer crowds have yet to arrive. The Canadian Pacific railroad that once connected Prince Edward Island’s small villages last roared through the interior in 1989, leaving in its wake hundreds of kilometers of track. By 2000, the tracks were pulled and the line replaced with a surface of finely crushed gravel, creating a biking and walking thoroughfare called the