Welcome to my 2016 Pre-Trip Report... Thank you for joining us as we explore an area of the world we have never been to.

Who Are We?
Well first off, I am Emma. I am in my early(ish) 40s and although I live in Bristol, I work in London in the Cabinet Office. I love travelling, reading and as a Librarian by profession, I love to organise stuff - theDibb is my holy grail.

Steven is (ahem) slightly older than I am and he is also a Civil Servant in Bristol. He loves photography and street art and likes to go with the flow, a free spirit. This means my challenge on holiday is always to organise lots of stuff that we are both going to love but make it look like a coincidence



Who Knew Toronto Was On The Med?
At the beginning of the year, Mr W and I sat down to talk about Holidays. We do the Halloween Horror thing every other year and weren't sure what we wanted to do this year as we didn't think we could really afford another USA trip.

We decided in January to keep things simple (and cheap) and look for ideas on the Med. However due to my allergy to fish and Mr W's dislike of food with tomatoes, cooked cheese, olives, too much garlic, pasta in general AND trying to find somewhere with lots to do AND with a mid-priced hotel which wasn't more expensive than our Dibb Villa, we didn't have much luck choosing a location...

... As February started to come and go, I became aware of a radio campaign by WOW airlines who flew between Bristol and North American via Iceland.



These ads went on every half hour for every day for a couple of weeks before I finally got it into my skull that (1) A "no frills" airline flew FROM Bristol and (2) It was flying TO North America.

So that lunch time I "just checked" the price of flights and realised that we could get two flights with extra leg room and a third bag for just under £320 pp to Toronto. Then I had one of those "Opps I have booked" moments over lunch at work that I wasn't expecting, genuinely in this case...



All I had to do was tell Mr W that although we had talked about going to Europe, we had accidently ended up heading for Canada - This is lead to the (now immortal) line of "Emma - you do know Toronto is not on the Med?"

So here we are, with three months to go, Not heading to Europe but heading to Canada and there was only one slight organisational problem...

I don't know the first thing about Canada

So join me in the next installment as I start to plan.

Update One - The Plan
Update Two - Our Travel Day Plans
Update Three - Devising a Walking Tour of Toronto
Update Four - World Cup of Hockey
Update Five - Niagara Falls
Update Six - Pittsburgh
Update Seven - Cleveland

Sounds great!

I've never heard of WOW Air (and I work in Travel - often on flights searching systems...) I must go and check them out.

Can't wait to read more!

Look forward to reading along

Can't wait to read along. We are not far from Bristol and are also heading to Toronto for the first time in October...
So far we have booked lunch at 360 in the CN Tower, Segway tour in the Distillery District and a private tour Lincoln car to Niagara Falls. I am enjoying researching a new holiday destination.

We've also booked dinner at the CN Tower and the Segway tour in the Distillery District but we're staying a couple of nights at Niagara at the end of our holiday.

That sounds nice.

There reviews are on a par with all other "no frills" airlines, some good, some people want gold plated service regardless. They specialise in Wow stopovers in Iceland (you spend a couple of days in iceland before travelling onwards) but we haven't opted for that this year.

Thanks - I think we have a plan now

I will let you know how we get on.

Oh looking forward to reading this. DH has an aunt in Toronto and would really like to visit her but it has never been somewhere that floats my boat. Hopefully your report will sell it to me

So in best Dibb style, this plan has gone through a number of variations and I am not sure I am done tinkering around the edges. So here it is - the Plan... (Note the Capital P - this is definitely a Capital P Plan)

Day One - Travel to Toronto, Check into the Comfy Inn Guest House
Day Two - Toronto for a DIY Street Art walking tour
Day Three - Toronto Harbourside, CN Tour, Islands

Day Four - Niagara Falls for boats, behind the falls, Check into Doubletree
Day Five - Niagara Falls - all the rest of the tourist bits (Skylon, Rainbow Bridge) - Also Fireworks in the evening.

Day Six - Buffalo for lunch (to eat wings), Punxatony for Tea (to see Phil), Check into Doubletree in Pittsburgh
Day Seven - Pittsburgh - Bridges, More Bridges, Mount Washington, Cathedral of Learning (nearly all free!)

Day Eight - Cleveland for Great Lakes Science Centre, Check into Holiday Inn Express *This is our down day and will include washing...
Day Nine - Cleveland, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Lake Front and WWE Smackdown (Mr W V. V. excited for this)

Day Ten - Detroit via the US islands on Erie, Check into the Courtyard
Day Eleven - Detroit Tigers Afternoon Baseball Match

Day Twelve - Detroit AM - Urban Decay Photographic Tour, PM - Port Stanley on Ontario Side of Lake Erie Check into the Kettle Inn, Port Stanley

Day Thirteen - Milton - Waterfalls of Hamilton Check into the Holiday In, Milton
Day Fourteen - Premium Outlet Village, Milton and then the flight home at 7pm from Toronto

So as you can see this is basically a tour of Lake Erie, 2 Countries, 4 States, 7 Hotels and 100s of miles driving.



Now I know that some of the places on our list are not top of everyones list for holiday hotspots, but we love urban landscapes, street art and history. For the States this area has bags of all of them.

Although all the hotels are booked now and the general plan is there, I am hoping for a couple of tweeks. Especially if the Ice Hockey season pre season goes in our favour.

I will share the details of each day over the coming weeks. Thanks for Reading.

Loving this!
We have planned a similar thing this year!
We are doing
Toronto- 3 nights
niagara- 2 nights
Syracuse- 6 nights
Portsmouth - 6 nights
Boston - 2 nights
Little falls- 2 nights
Sandbanks 9 - nights

I think I might do a pre-trippe too!