Saturday, May 24: One week from launch!

This time next week I'll be on Air Canada on my way to Vancouver via Toronto. I haven't started packing yet, but I did start a list with the goal of packing as light as possible. I have experience: I went to Russia as a teenager, Scandinavia in college, the Far East after graduation and Britain and France since. I learned not to pack anything I can't carry by myself through a train station, up a big flight of stairs and halfway across a city in a downpour. (So, yes to raincoat, no to three pairs of heels.)

The idea is to start in Vancouver and work my way across the western provinces to Ontario and finish with a few days knocking around Toronto and the Niagara region. Full disclosure: I'm doing it for the Canadian Tourism Commission and on their dime, but I've been promised total editorial freedom, so if the weather sucks or the train is late, I'll say so. I've vacationed in Eastern Canada since I was a child, and I am very fond of Canada and eager to see more of it, but I'm also a journalist, so I'm not interested in spin or puffery. What I tell you would be useless if it weren't honest.

So I hope you'll join me here as I depart on May 31 for my adventure. I hope you'll find helpful information that might help you plan a trip of your own. Let's face it: Despite everything that's happened in the past few years, Canada is still friendlier, closer and easier to get in and out of than a lot of other countries you could visit, and while the dollar is down a bit against the loonie, it's still not Monopoly money. Plus, they have very good beer.