Inside the icon: our latest feature
Star insiders will provide you with top tips for great sights
It came to me after a dinner with a tourism official from a major American city. We had spent a lovely evening chatting about all sorts of “new” things in her area. But as I made my way home I got to thinking about how those of us in the travel business are always asking or talking about what’s new. And we forget about what’s old. By that I mean we spend so much time talking about this new, hip bartender at such and such a hotel in Vancouver and we forget to chat about, or write about, Stanley Park.
I got to thinking about it and I realized that I’d never had a freelancer pitch me a story on The Empire State Building. Or a tour of Buckingham Palace. Or a lot of other famous spots in the world.
But in many cases those are the truly iconic things we all want to see when we travel. Sure, a nice restaurant on the outskirts of Paris is dandy. But most of us want to go see the Eiffel Tower and The Louvre and Montmartre.
So that’s where my idea came from for the story on our front page of today’s section. We’re calling it The Insider’s View, and the story on the wondrous Taj Mahal is the first in an occasional series on how to really see those treasured sights of the world we all have on our check lists.
With each of these reports, we’ll give you something you can clip out and take with you; an insider’s guide to the best times to visit and the best tours to take and even the best place to get a photo you’ll want to keep forever.
I think it’ll be a great service to you, our readers, and I hope you agree. I also would love to hear your ideas about this series. Is there a place you’d like to see us feature in a coming issue of the Star?
Do you have other ideas for stories? Drop me a line at jbyers@thestar.ca and write “Iconic Places” in the subject matter of the email. Thanks.