This story category covers information of interest to Canadian readers, particularly those living in Vancouver.

NextIssue Home

Get All Your Fave Mags For Just $10 A Month

If you love popular newsstand magazines and own an IPad, Android or Windows device, then the Next Issue app is going to be right up your alley.

 NextIssue Home

 

 

THE PRICE IS RIGHT | As someone who is at this very moment staring at a mile-high years-in-the-making pile of magazines that needs to be schlepped to the dump, I look forward to switching from print publications to digital ones. Read more

Young boy jumping into lake

Take A Mini Vacay @ Cusheon Lake Resort

For us, the perfect vacation spot is a little less Napa and a little more Mayberry.

Young boy jumping into lake

 

TRAVEL ADVISORY | The province of British Columbia is peppered with posh resorts, and developers keep adding new ones all the time thinking that designer surroundings, celebrity-chef restaurants, spa treatments and 600-thread-count sheets are what make a vacation unique. That is one approach for sure, but it’s not our preference. We like a little less Napa and a little more Mayberry when it comes to summer retreats, which is why we love Cusheon Lake Resort on Salt Spring Island, a perfect example of the latter.

Read more

Flying U

Mini Vacay @ Canada’s Oldest Dude Ranch

Pony up for a mini vacay at Canada’s oldest and most original dude ranch, The Flying U—where you’re allowed to ride out on your own.

Horse wrangle at Flying U Ranch

 

TRAVEL ADVISORY | I never went to a dude ranch as a kid, but my husband did. He and his brother spent a week as buckaroos at The Flying U guest ranch in B.C.’s Cariboo. It was their favourite childhood holiday. “Better ’n Disneyland” is how they described the experience to their friends when they got home, and the way they continued to speak of it years later. Read more

Rodney Graham

Get Better Photos With Your Digital Camera

This surprisingly inexpensive introductory class will teach you how to take much better pictures with your digital camera.

Rodney Graham

 

SUPER VALUE  | There’s no way my snaps will ever match the cinematographic style of Jeff Wall, Rodney Graham (featured above) or Ian Wallace, three stellar members of the internationally acclaimed “Vancouver School” of photography, but recently I learned how to get a better than average shot with my compact digital camera. For the surprisingly low price of just $25, I received two hours of solid instruction in alternatives to Automatic Mode, the most commonly used setting (and my former personal fave) on the mode dial of digital cameras. Read more

Iceberg Alley- FlyOver Canada

See Canada’s Wonders On FlyOver Canada

See all of Canada’s natural wonders on FlyOver Canada’s spectacular virtual flight ride.

Iceberg Alley- FlyOver Canada

 

TRAVEL ADVISORY | I flew across Canada the other day. It took a total of 30 minutes to travel from coast to coast. For $20 dollars I dipped, dove and soared in an aerial dance that began in Newfoundland’s surreal Iceberg Alley and ended in the Northwest Territories, where glowing, auroral streamers swirled in the northern light. Along the way, I flew into the misty middle of Niagara Falls, over the top of the astounding cirque glaciers found along ridge crests in the Rockies, and through a procession of other breathtaking Canadian landscapes. Read more

The Perfect Eyebrow

The Best Place For Eyebrow Threading

Chasing the perfect brow? Here’s the best (and least expensive) place to have your eyebrows threaded locally.

The Perfect EyebrowCHEAP & FANTASTIC | Eyebrows can be tweezed, waxed or threaded. Of these three techniques, I prefer threading, and not just because I pay $5 to have them done this way. Threading is quicker than tweezing (typically taking fewer than 10 minutes), less painful overall than waxing and, to my mind, results in a crisper, more finished look than either of the other methods. Read more

Two Ways To Have Books Shipped For Free

Wow! Finally a website where some third party sellers offer free shipping for their used books online—plus, how to get free shipping on new book orders under $25.

Old Books—Shutterstock

 

FREE IS GOOD | While both Indigo.ca and Amazon.ca offer free shipping on the books you purchase through their companies when you spend a minimum $25, the same is not true for used books they list that are offered by third party sellers. These books always come with an added shipping cost, making what might look like a steal of a deal anything but once these extra charges are tacked on. Read more

The Coolest Way To Tour Vancouver

Many of the West Coast’s most spectacular homes are on the water. To see them, you should be too.

West Vancouver Waterfront Homes

 

TRAVEL ADVISORY | West Vancouver is hardly Amalfi, but like this picturesque stretch of Mediterranean waterfront in Italy, it does have interesting houses terraced into the rocky coastline, some with cascading, tropical gardens of Babylonian intent. And when the days are sunny and calm like they they will be shortly, we like to rent a (reasonably priced) runabout from Sewell’s Marina in Horseshoe Bay and treat our out-of-town guests to a tour of this gorgeous shoreline in one of Canada’s poshest postal codes. Read more

Postage on Package

How To Pick Up U.S. Parcels In Point Bob

Why pick up your U.S. parcels in Blaine, when there is a more convenient and practical way to get them.

Postage on Package

 

EASY LIKE THIS | How many times have you tried to order something online only to discover that the company you’re ordering it from doesn’t ship to Canada? In the past, I found a way around this problem by having parcels shipped to Blaine, Washington, and then traipsing over the border to pick them up (CLICK HERE for our story). Now I have an even more expedient way to retrieve them. Read more

Top of Vancouver- Wikipedia Commons

Vancouver’s Revolving Eateries Are The Top

Does Vancouver have more revolving restaurants than anywhere outside of Asia?

View from the Top of Vancouver

 

TRAVEL ADVISORY | While the market for revolving restaurants is hot in the Middle East and Asia, no one is making new ones in North America, and the multitude of revolving restaurants here, most of which were built in the 1960s and 1970s, are shutting down.

What was once the chicest place in town to take your sweetie to eat is now—at least in North America—considered a tourist destination or the spot to dine with old aunties in taste-bud decline.

Too bad about these closures because revolving restaurants offer an unrepeatable experience, a one-of-a-kind way to see a city. In Vancouver we remain lucky: we still have three revolvers open for business. Read more