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Fall is by far my favourite season and one of the main reasons why are the beautiful changing leaves. Being a city girl, I usually admire the foliage from the Don Valley Parkway or Evergreen Brickworks. This year, on the long Thanksgiving weekend, my partner and I were treated to 2 night stay at an eco-friendly micro cabin near Frontenac Provincial Park from South Eastern Ontario! (https://thegreatwaterway.com ) We were REALLY going to experience an autumn forest at its peak! I first found out about CabinScape through South Eastern Ontario. They’re a company that rents out 8 different micro cabins (anywhere from 120 sq feet to 168 sq feet) in the Canadian wilderness. Many of them back out onto picturesque forests, rolling farm acres or private lakes and rivers. What caught my interest the most was that they were all solar powered and eco-friendly. As someone who likes to travel as much as I can, I try to offset my carbon footprint anyway I can. This seemed like a really responsible long weekend getaway. 
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I have to admit, everyone I told my weekend plans to sort of looked at me in surprise. “Buffalo, for the WEEKEND? What’s in Buffalo? I haven’t been since I was a kid”. Buffalo, New York sort of has a bad rap here in Toronto, many of us just hop across the border for a day to enjoy sweet, sweet American shopping at Target and Outlets, then drive back home before the sun goes down.  There is nothing I like better than finding a really unique Air BnB experience. I have favourite folders of tree houses, farm stays and yurts all over the world that I may not even get to, but one can dream. I enjoy roughing it a bit and find camping pretty fun. My friends and I can forgo electricity and running water for a long weekend to cook over an open fire and take a dip in the lake.   My husband and I were celebrating our first wedding anniversary this year and we wanted to have a fun getaway. We were looking for somewhere close that would justify only being there for a long weekend and somewhere we’ve never fully experienced together. May sound like a weird destination for a romantic getaway, but we hopped on a Porter flight to Halifax.
I search for beautiful/unique Air Bnb’s like it’s my job, I follow Air Bnb hashtags on Twitter and Instagram and follow the ‘Best of’ Air Bnb accounts. It’s a fun little hobby I have. I found a cute spot on the north end run called Urban Garden Flat run by owner Terry, who left a little message board out for us wishing us a Happy Anniversary with snacks and local beers. I would highly recommend this place as it was beautifully decorated, had everything you could ever need and the price was right. Check them out at this link here: https://www.airbnb.ca/rooms/31846253  I need a minimum of a trip every 3 months. I just recently received my fourth week vacation allotment at work (WOOHOO!) but sometimes, schedules don’t work out. Pals are using their vacations on out of town weddings, my husband is jet setting to the middle of nowhere Canada for work, my mommy friends can’t get a long term sitter, man, getting older is hard. BUT! I was recently given a free stay at the hip Queen Street location Drake Hotel (www.thedrake.ca) from Daily Hive Toronto (www.dailyhive.com) (BLESS you!)
Out of all the places I’ve been in the world, Mexico wasn’t one of them until just last month. People are usually pretty surprised “Not even once? An all-inclusive around Cancun somewhere?” Nope, resorts aren’t normally my style, and maybe what took me so long to finally visit Mexico was that I assumed it was all one big tourist trap of giant beach hotels, open bars and college kids. My bad. I found Merida almost by mistake, I was browsing through Air BnB and saw a gorgeous house for rent in the city centre. Never having heard of Merida before, I pulled it up on a map. It wasn’t near a beach (but still accessible to one, read on) and boasted food markets, free art galleries and not completely over run by tourists. Bingo. My husband and I along with a couple friends of ours booked for the end of February.  Here are some events we really enjoyed, or tips we found out about while visiting and maybe you will too if Merida is in your future!
 Who doesn’t love a good cocktail? Toronto is full of bar’s serving up complicated and Instagram worthy cocktails that I’m always happy to order. Thing is, when I finally pick my poison off the drink menu, it magically appears completed before me and I have no idea what went into making it. I love hosting parties and our house even has its own little bar, but apart from serving up some super simple drinks (I’m talking rum and cokes, gin and tonics) and maybe some sangria, I have no idea what I’m doing.
The spark of true love is the dream that each of us pursues ~ Donatella Versace  I’m a fragrance queen, I don’t leave the house without spritzing on a perfume that reflects my current mood or ‘completes’ my outfit. I’m just as interested in what’s new in the world of men’s colognes. Dave Lackie held a beautiful launch party to celebrate Versace’s’ Ero’s Flame at Terroni’s on Adelaide last week. A chic event space on the 2nd floor was transformed into a Miami-esque dinner party, complete with palm leaves towering over dinner guests in tall black vases, gold lamps gently glowing over bouquets of geraniums, roses and scattered oranges, a nod to the notes of the fragrance. It was the perfect escape from the blizzard that was happening in downtown Toronto, just outside the front doors.
 Beauty and finance are not something that usually go together, and when I saw Dave Lackie was hosting an even for just that, I was intrigued. It seemed to pop up at just the right time, too! My husband and I have been trying to sort our finances out since the wedding, and were in right in the middle of taking an investing and finance course online, too.
I’m not sure about you guys, but I wouldn’t call myself money savvy. I mean, I’m good at saving, have some mutual funds and an RRSP account through my workplace but wouldn’t be able to get into any detail about what exactly the accounts meant for me, how they’d help me later in life and where all my investments are going. I let my banker handle that! In Dave we trust, so when he brought his own personal financial expert Jay Papernick (Check him out here: https://www.assante.com/advisors/jpapernick/) to speak to his followers gathers in a hall at 15 York St, we were hanging off his every word. I chatted with a few of Dave’s Babe’s over some wine and veggie spring rolls before the event started and we were all on the same page when it came to money. It scared us, it made us feel uncomfortable and we wish we knew more about it, especially living in such a big city like Toronto where the rent and mortgages seem to climb higher every week and a decent meal out will set you back a nice chunk of change.  I love travelling and try to get away as often as I can. Life in the city can add up, we have rent, insurance, parking and countless other bills to take care of, so we really need to budget when we go away.
When I say ‘budget’, I don’t mean we choose a lesser quality trip, I like to think of myself as a smart shopper and subscribe to such newsletters as Travel Zoo, Scott’s Cheap Flights, Next Departure and YYZ deals (thanks, guys, you’re all life savers!) to score a great trip at the right price. Earlier this year, my husband called me from work after receiving the Travel Zoo weekly newsletter, he saw a deal too good to pass up. Thailand. It’s been on his bucket list forever. It was an 8 day trip, with flights to Bangkok, from there flights to Chiang Mai and Phuket were also included. 4 star hotels in each destination and transportation from each airport, all for $1400. It seemed too good to be true. I put my travel detective hat on and googled some reviews of the tour company, UTO travel based out of Richmond Hill. They were mixed, some raving and some ranting. |
SarahHey! I'm Sarah! A 30 something living in downtown Toronto with a great guy and an OK dog. I love seeing what my city has to offer and try to hit up as many fun events or attractions as I can! I haven't slept since 2004.
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