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Year 2011 in review

Priyank — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 12:29:49 +0000

Annual reviews: | Year 2010 | Year 2009 | Year 2008

Building on the Work-Save-Travel model

This year I travelled to two new countries: Mexico and Ecuador. Besides that, I got a full time job, a house and things like that. That made it difficult to take time off work, but I will make it happen anyway since travelling is the best way to spend money, don’t you agree?

Mexico

I backpacked in Mexico at the beginning of the year, checking out Mexico city and several surrounding areas to the north, west and southern parts of central highlands. Then I travelled to Yucatan to see some spectacular Mayan ruins, returning back with a tan to a snowy Toronto.

Mexico travelogue – Mexico photo gallery

Northern Ontario

It was late spring in Toronto but still snow season in the North. I took a bus trip to North Bay, continuing to Timmins, about 700 km away from Toronto. Later in the summer, I also visited Iron Bridge, a little community between Sudbury and Sault Ste. Marie on the shores of Lake Huron.

Northern Ontario photo gallery | Timmins photo gallery

Ecuador

In autumn, I travelled to Ecuador for about a month, spending majority of my time in the mountains and hiking to my heart’s content. I was quite surprised by how geographically diverse the country was and the number of activities one could indulge in.

Ecuador travelogue – Ecuador photo gallery

Life events in Toronto and travel to surrounding areas

This year I bought a house, it’s a 130-year old Victorian house, with ghosts and stuff in the attic. As you can imagine, now I am not only firmly grounded in Toronto but also fully ‘settled down’ with a partner, mortgage, job and things like that. So I was quite busy this summer putting everything together.

Besides lots of cycling to places in Toronto, I also visited Guelph area and made an annual pilgrimage-like trip to Niagara falls / Buffalo, NY.

Toronto Tuesday – Niagara Falls photo gallery

Detroit, USA

The year ends as I spend christmas holidays with my in-laws in Detroit. Detroit is a nice city but plagued by complex problems which I solely blame on the evil auto industry…haha! Nevertheless, I had a great time walking in the downtown core.

Detroit photo gallery

Travel blogging and social media

Besides writing a journal about my travels, I also ventured into social media this year by signing up for Twitter and Facebook and socialising with travel bloggers in general. Since travelling is not my fulltime activity (unfortunately) or a source of income, there is only so much time I could dedicate to social media.

But I’m glad that my twitter network has grown to 965 followers and facebook community has grown to 180. At the same time, I published 91 blog posts this year and my alexa rank has improved from 864k to 240k today. I think I am at equilibrium now, haha!

Oh yes, and I moved my travel blog to a new domain name: finaltransit.com, so please update your bookmarks!

So that’s the summary of my travels this year. How was 2011 for you?

Annual reviews: | Year 2010 | Year 2009 | Year 2008

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A tale of two thermometers

Priyank — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 04:56:12 +0000

Toronto’s extreme temperature swings

“I thought Canada was covered in snow all year,” my friend joked when I told him about the sweltering heat in Toronto last month. This area of North America was hit by a blistering heat wave that saw temperatures soaring to 40ºC on July 21, 2011. With high humidity and ultra-violet rays, the intensity was even worse. I bike to work at around 8am and return before 6pm; usually the weather is bearable around that time. But it was a different story last month!

However, that’s not the only weather extremity we faced in the recent past. Few days during this past winter, it was so cold that even the mercury barely made an appearance on the thermometer scale. I was glad I went on a vacation to Mexico and missed four snow storms! On my way home, the aircraft circled over Toronto for a while before landing. The city looked white, bright and beautiful in the evening sky. The pilot reminded us how Cancun also looked white, bright and beautiful when we had taken off earlier that day; however, Cancun’s brightness was due to its sandy beaches while Toronto’s glitter came from the snow blanketing it.

Want snow…

So when I had nothing better to do the other day, I started looking for gateways around the city for winter sports. The City of Toronto maintains two ski and snowboard centres in the city – Centennial Park and Earl Bales Park besides a large number of ice rinks for skating. The topography around Toronto is more or less a flat, and there aren’t any dramatic mountains around. As a result, unlike the Western coast of continental America or most of Europe there are not many resorts that are ideal for ski holidays. Wish there was an indoor ski resorts on lines of the one in Dubai, but then we don’t have oil money to splurge.

↑ Timmins, Northern Ontario

Where did you spend your last summer holidays? Any ski resorts?

Photo credits: colin.jagoe (heat wave), BugMan50 (cold wave)

Year 2008 in review

Priyank — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 11:15:31 +0000

Annual reviews: | Year 2010 | Year 2009 | Year 2008

Fantastic year of travel: Bhutan, Israel, Peru, Russia, USA

I finished my one-year internship and returned back to classes this year. However, that also helped me save up some money and I was able to travel a lot this year. In particular, the second half of 2008 was amaaazing since I moved out and took 3 months off just to travel! Now I have been to 8 countries.

Israel

I started the new year in Tel Aviv, almost at the end of my Israel trip. It was a fun party, ending only at dawn.

Link to my Israel travel stories.

New York City

I got my US visitors visa this year so I was very excited to go to New York City. It’s a fantastic city, almost overwhelming but then I tend to like crowded cities so I enjoyed NYC a lot.

Peru

On a random day in winter, I woke up and lazily looked at the web promo email that Air Canada routinely sends. It’s nothing but a gimmick, but regardless, I ended up booking a flight to Lima, Peru. I had no clue where I was going, or the language, food, safety issues. I think that’s why I enjoyed all the hiking, exploring and getting lost.

Read about my experience of backpacking in Peru.

Killarney Provincial Park

Early summer / late spring was a nice time to visit the Killarney Provincial Park, although I was bitten by black flies all over and came back with lots of souvenirs.

Bike trip to Niagara Falls

Since my roommate and I shared several interests, we embarked upon a legendary 4 day bicycle trip to Niagara falls region. It was a fantastic trip and birthday, and I learned a lot about myself. I also crossed over to Buffalo, USA to get my immigration documents. Somehow I landed on the I-94 which is an interstate highway in USA, and it wasn’t fun!

Russia

Since the cheapest way to go to India was flying Aeroflot, I decided to take more time off work and school to make it a three month trip. I studied Russian which is very important if you want to enjoy the country, and it kept me yearning for more.

Check out my stories from travel in Russia.

Bhutan

Land of the Thunder Dragon, happiest country in the world, hidden deep inside the Himalayas and the only country where having an Indian passport is the best thing that could have happen to you. I was in Bhutan only for 2.5 weeks, but it was enough to see most of the important sights and fall in love with the country.

Bhutan travel stories

India

I spent about 6-7 weeks in India, travelling to Kolkata, taking a road trip to Bangalore and generally hanging out. I was going back after 3 years so it was quite exciting and gave me lot of time to reflect and think things over!

So that’s the summary of my travels this year. How was did the year treat you?

Annual reviews: | Year 2010 | Year 2009 | Year 2008

Toronto Biking

Priyank — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 21:24:52 +0000

April 28, 2007
3 of us went on a long [tag]biking[/tag] trip spanning about 46km. We started from York University, went west from Steeles Av. until we hit the [tag]Humber[/tag] river tributary after Islington Av. From there was a fun ride south along the river, thru the forests and parks, right upto [tag]Lake Ontario[/tag]. We then went east along the coast into the city and finished at Union Station. So we covered the north-south extremes of [tag]Toronto[/tag]

It was a pleasant weather. Somehow I like mildly cloudy sky:

Ducks and Geese swimming in a small pond in Summerlea Park:

Spring was just arriving. The trees looked more brown than green:

Some neighborhood:

Bell in Cruickshank Park:

Scarlett Mills Park:

People fishing near the Old Mill Bridge. Later, the trail passes under the subway station, it looks fantastic.

Finally we crisscrossed under a maze of freeways and Go Train lines to reach the Humber River Bridge. This is the point where the river merges into Lake Ontario:

Lunch spot:

Structure in Downtown (I don’t remember the name)

Sailbots at Yacht Clubs:

And finally, our [tag]bicycle[/tag]s

Links: Photos clicked by Vaarun and Evgeny

Any guesses how we went back to the university? Subway and Bus…! Thats right, we are allowed to carry bikes

Toronto Islands – I

Priyank — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 08:36:20 +0000

[tag]Toronto[/tag] city is situated on the bank of Lake Ontario. To the south of the city is a chain of small islands, called [tag]Toronto Islands[/tag]. The islands are a popular tourist destination. Barely two kilometers away from noisy and crowded downtown, this place is ideal for a quick escape and some solitude.

Tourist cruise ship on the on-shore dock.

Regular [tag]ferry[/tag] services run from the mainland to the islands. For a mere $6 ticket, the visitor can spend whole day cris-crossing the islands on ferries. Many people carry their bikes, while others bring their barbecue sets and have a little party.

Toronto downtown as seen from the lake.

The giant and the dwarf. CN Tower against a tiny yacht.

On the ferry from mainland to the islands.

[tag]Ward’s island[/tag] is the eastern end of the central island and it is also connected to the southen island. There are a number of residential areas, restaurants, parks and a nice little beach. The calmness of this place felt almost unbelievable, especially because just 15 minutes back we were in the city.

Arriving on Ward’s island.

As seen in the picture above, many people own a yacht and spend their weekends idling in the lake.

African Safari

Priyank — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 06:25:35 +0000

I went with some friends to the [tag]African Lion Safari[/tag], some 100 km south-west of [tag]Toronto[/tag]. It was a nice place to go, especially if you have kids and they haven’t seen animals. All the wildlife is out in the open, while the visitors are en-caged in their cars or the Safari buses.

Since we were inside the car, I couldn’t take good pictures. Few of them are here:

It was quite warm that day (perhaps around 25-28 deg C). Main attraction of the place, the [tag]Lions[/tag], were resting calmly. It was thrilling to see them from so close.

Lions sleeping

Monkeys were all over our cars. They loved to sit on the car roofs and enjoy the drive. We had [tag]Monkeys[/tag] on our side-view mirrors and were wondering how to get rid of them. As the car started moving, and crossed a yellow painted line, surprisingly all of them jumped off. It was really strange!

Monkeys

Then there were…

Wild [tag]Buffaloes[/tag]

Maybe this was the first time I saw…

[tag]Giraffe[/tag]

The [tag]Ostrich [/tag]were pecking at windows of cars as we stopped to observe them. It was funny, the animal was pecking the sides of cars. No clue why…. pea brain indeed!

Ostrich

Rhinos are endangered species

[tag]Rhinoceros[/tag]

I don’t remember the name of this animal. Looks like an antelope or a goat or something of that kind. Does anyone know?

[tag]Antelope[/tag]?

The safari claims to have about 1000 species of birds and animals. I must have seen about 100 or so, but it was impossible to take pictures all the time. There are demonstrations showing how the birds hunt, elephant rides for kids, toy train and boat cruises for all.

Nice place to go. At least once.

Another blue-sky-blue-water photo was posted last week.