This summer, I sampled some of the best Mexican food I’ve ever had.  I wasn’t in Mexico, not even close.  I enjoyed my scoff of turkey tamales and salsa under the shade of a tree, with one of my dearest high school friends, in Aylmer, Ontario.  Alisa Murphy is my friend’s name and I’ll tell you about her Mexican connection soon, but first, a little background.

On every list I make, for every vacation I take, there’s the essential iPod and charger as an item somewhere near the top of the electronics category.  Many times, scribbled next to it, there will be a few song titles.  They’re tunes I want to upload from my CDs or buy.  I’ll want them for that particular jaunt.

On a recent trip to Ecuador, I visited a town called Santa Rosa near Salinas on the country's south west coast.  My travel companion had been there before and he knew it would be an adventure I would enjoy. This was one of the most vibrant scenes I have come across on my travels to date. 

I like Gander. There, I said it.  What’s more, I mean it.  Now, I wasn’t always a fan of this Central Newfoundland town.  Like many in this province, for me, Gander was a pee break or a stop for a quick bite and usually a convenient place for a gas fill-up on the way somewhere else.  I spent a week in Gander recently and I’m here to tell you, Gander has a lot more to offer travellers than a double-double and bag of chips at Irving. 

I like green a lot but if I was pressed to choose my favourite colour, it’d probably be blue.  I go for navy, royal and I'm even partial to periwinkle, but my favourite colour blue is “Bimini Blue”, a hue I think I named, and an island I fell in love with, after a short visit there in 2012.  

There’s a bumper crop of icebergs on the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador this season.  Those wondrous, white towers of ice are everywhere!

San Francisco was one of those places I knew I’d be fond of, but boy, I fell hard for this vibrant ville on California’s coast.  I loved it all, the sound of the street cars, the tour of Alcatraz, hangin’ with the hippies on Haight and Ashbury, latin food in the Mission, the Italian cafes in North Beach, watching the ferries at The Embarcadero and the Museum of Modern Art.  What’s not to admire about this city?

And, we’re off! This is the first time I’ve set out on this kind of journey; a trip into cyberspace. The vehicle? A travel blog, a blog I hope will introduce you to fellow travellers and photographers, expat Newfoundlanders and Labradorians and stunning and intriguing places all over the world.