FURTHER AFIELD

One Trump or no-Trump, Canadian snowbirds are increasingly migrating to destinations outside the U.S., usually during the time that many of us who remain pinned down in the trenches during the winter months refer to affectionately as shovel-snow-and-repeat season. According to a Blue Cross study entitled Not Your Traditional Snowbirds, winter escapees nowadays are younger, increasingly more adventurous and ever more open to winter nest building in exotic destinations. And although snowbird trips to the U.S. have grown by 175 per cent since 1998, they have gone up by 224 per cent to alternative temporary termini. These include Panama, Argentina, Costa Rica, Jamaica, Dominican Republic, Honduras, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Thailand, New Zealand and, of course, Mexico. Making it easier is that younger snowbirds are less likely to own property abroad, preventing them from being tied down to one locale and making the world their personal pearl-bearing mollusk. —IM