Twelve months, a touch more than 50,000km in the air and lots of trains, cars, buses, and subways stitched together a motley crew of places in this year’s travels – Portland, Paris, Lyon, Beaune, Reims, Montreal, Winnipeg, Atlanta, Halifax, Kelowna, Baltimore, Regina and Boston. The places were all lovely (I might be stretching that a bit for Baltimore), but what will stick in my mind is a series of moments and memories. Sometimes they are about the place, but most often, they’re about something else – people, food, a feeling – the really timeless stuff.

In no particular order, here are my favourite memories from my travels throughout 2017.

1. Crushing pints with Dad in Montreal – Less than two hours after touching down in Montreal, Dad coming in from Halifax, me from Saskatoon, we were in craft beer bar Benelux with a couple of pints on the table in front of us. The sun coming in the window on a late March afternoon was glorious, the beer cold and delicious, but the best thing was simply catching up with Dad as one pint turned into two.

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