My first visit to Montréal, Québec was a whirlwind weekend featuring a bone-chillingly cold horse drawn carriage ride through Old Montréal, a visit to the Notre-Dame Basilica and a packed Britney Spears concert at the Bell Center. I sampled La Belle Province poutine, smoked meat from Schwartz's Deli and crêpes...

Arms crossed rigidly over my Neoprene-covered chest, terrified of moving but desperate to manoeuvre for a better view of the more than 1,500 fish teeming around me, I floated at the top of the massive oceanarium at the National Aquarium in Napier, New Zealand.

Enormous stingrays floated by as I...

As a child, The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings books transported me to a magical land or wondrous and terrifying characters. J.R.R.Tolkien's Middle Earth was so richly drawn that I tumbled through every glen in my imagination alongside the diminutive hobbits. Each hairy-toed step of Bilbo Baggins' trek from...