DESTINATIONS FOR EVERY KIND OF DAD
It’s a big world out there; with everything from golf to vineyards to cruises.
And that means that buying a Father’s Day gift can be dead simple.
Here’s a list of potential travel spots for 10 kinds of fathers:
GOLFING DAD
The Cabot Cliffs and Cabot Links complex at Inverness, N.S., has become one of the world’s top golf destinations. Cabot Cliffs surged into the Golf Digest top 20 in the world soon after officially opening in this Cape Breton community a year ago. It’s a stunner, with what might be the most dramatic finishing holes of any courses in North America. Its sister course, Cabot Links, was the first true linksstyle course in Canada and still garners rave reviews for its seaside beauty and challenging layout. The ocean views from both courses are wonderful, and you can put Dad up for the night at their lodge. cabotlinks.com
FOODIE DAD
New Orleans is one of the great food cities of the U.S., thanks in part to Acadians who came to the area a couple centuries ago from Canada. Dishes like shrimp étouffée and blackened redfish are to die for; smoky and spicy and layered with luscious flavours. If Dad leans more to sweets, take him to Brennan’s for killer Bananas Foster, soaked in rum and butter and other good bits and cooked in front of you in a pan with flames that can shoot a metre high in the air. Or try the beignets with powdered sugar at legendary Café du Monde. Just don’t wear a black shirt.
WILDLIFE-LOVING DAD
Sonora Resort is a posh retreat on an island between the British Columbia mainland and Vancouver Island. The waters around the island are home to dolphins, killer whales, sea lions and more. The area also is teeming with black bears, plus bald eagles and other majestic birds. There’s wonderful fishing, and they’ll teach Dad to fly fish if he wants. There’s also hiking, cycling and more. If you go in fall when the salmon are running you’re almost certain to see fish-loving grizzly bears in the wild. It’s a stirring sight that one doesn’t forget, especially if a mother and her two cubs are 25 or 30 metres away from you. The rooms are beautiful and the food is sensational. (sonoraresort. com) Don’t forget that Canadian national parks are free this year, so that’s a great way to save money. (pc.gc.ca)
THEATRICAL DAD
There are wonderful options all across Canada, including a couple of world-class theatre companies a short drive from Toronto. I recently saw some chilling rehearsals for Bram Stoker’s Dracula, which is on this summer at The Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake. (shawfest. com) The Stratford Festival is a roughly two-hour drive west of Toronto and has some of the best theatre on the planet. Shows this year include Guys and Dolls and Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. (stratfordfestival.ca)
Shakespeare on the Saskatchewan is a fun and lively group that performs in Saskatoon. (shakespearesask.com)
Of course, there’s always New York City for perhaps the world’s best live theatre. For a Canadian angle, take Dad to The Big Apple to see the heartwarming Come From Away, a terrific play about how folks in Gander, N.L., took care of folks left stranded on The Rock when planes were grounded on 9/11. (nycgo.com)
BEACH-LOVING DAD
There are great beaches on the big lakes north of Winnipeg, as well as in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island, where you’ll find endless beaches backed by pretty, red cliffs. The beaches might be even better on Îles-de-la-Madeleine (Magdalen Islands), a small group of islands northeast of P.E.I. that are part of Quebec. Ontario has an impressive array of Great Lakes Beaches, including Port Dover on Lake Erie, Grand Bend on Lake Huron and Sandbanks Provincial Park on Lake Ontario. There are great beaches in the Okanagan Valley of B.C. and very good surfing at Tofino on Vancouver Island. You probably don’t want to take Dad to the nudist area at Wreck Beach in Vancouver, so it might be best to try Kitsilano or English Bay.
CRUISE-LOVING DAD
Silversea is one of the world’s top cruise lines, with exceptional food and wine and wonderful, personal guides to show you around various ports of call. On a trip a few years ago, my wife and I had a huge suite with a sitting room, a massive walk-in closet, an enormous bathroom equipped with luxurious toiletries and a butler at our disposal. The food was marvellous, and the all-you-can-drink cocktails went down pretty easy, too. Itineraries include the Mediterranean, Australia, South America and more. silversea.com
WINE-LOVING DAD
Canada’s wine scene has improved by bounds and leaps the past couple decades. In British Columbia, the south Okanagan area has hot, dry summers that are perfect for growing fruity, powerful red wines. Farther north, things get a little cooler and you’ll find excellent whites such as Pinot Gris. Nova Scotia is making better wines all the time, especially around Wolfville. Luckett Vineyards makes good reds and whites, while Benjamin Bridge is becoming very well known for sparkling wine. Ontario also is famous for its wines. Niagara is home to wonderful wineries such as Trius, while Muscedere makes great wines outside of Windsor in southwestern Ontario. Prince Edward County is known for elegant Chardonnay.
EUROPE-LOVING DAD
I like to think of Slovenia as The Tiny, Perfect Country. It’s a former part of Yugoslavia that borders Italy, Austria, Hungary and Croatia and has elements of all four. The coastline feels very much like Croatia or Italy, with red-tiled roofs and waterfront cafes galore. The inland resort area of Lake Bled has a fairy-tale castle on an island and views of the Slovenian-Austrian alps. Slovenia also has extensive networks of caves, pastoral countryside and a wonderful capital city of Ljubljana, with creamy, pastel-coloured buildings lining a river and a small, hilltop castle. .
MUSIC-LOVING DAD
This is the 50th anniversary of the Summer of Love, and what better place to experience magical memories of the 1960s than San Francisco? This year also marks the 50th anniversary of the release of The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (commemorated with a recently released remixed version of the album), so you might want to treat Dad to a visit to Liverpool, England, where the Fab Four grew up.
The Montreal International Jazz Festival has a wide variety of music (not only jazz) and features top performers every summer. This year’s event runs June 28 to July 8 and features everyone from John Coltrane (in documentary form) and his son, Ravi Coltrane (in concert) to Buddy Guy to Bob Dylan, along with Canada’s own Carly Rae Jepsen, Feist and Diana Krall. (montrealjazzfest.com)
DIVING DAD
Lady Elliot Island is the southernmost coral key on the Great Barrier Reef of Australia. It’s a great spot for diving or snorkelling, with all kinds of colourful fish and also turtles and schools of manta rays. There’s a nice lodge on the island that’s billed as an eco-resort, with good food and clean, comfortable rooms. Kids will love exploring the tidepools. It’s accessible by plane from the mainland, landing on a grassy strip. (ladyelliot.com.au)