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I’m off this evening to Banff (and then Revelstoke) for a 10 day snowboarding trip. If you’ve been reading Architect This City since this time last year, you’ll know that this is an annual tradition that I started with a group of close friends from grad school. It’s our annual retreat to the mountains and it’s our 6th year doing. I hope we never stop.
So what happens to ATC?
Regular scheduled programming will continue as usual. But don’t be surprised if I change things up and make the content a bit more personal on some of the days. I’ve also decided to try out something new and video blog throughout the trip using Snapchat Stories. If you’d like to follow along, my username is donnelly_b. There will also be a more traditional video to follow.
Finally, if you happen to know Banff and/or Revelstoke well, or happen to be from out west, I’d love to hear from you. It’s always great to get local insights.
Image: Revelstoke via Flickr
This past week was Toronto’s first real snowstorm of the season. It was awesome. I love snow. And part of the reason I love it, is because it means snowboarding season is here. Yes, the “mountains” in Ontario suck, but Quebec and Vermont aren’t too far away and every February there is The Annual.
This year in preparation for the season I decided to splurge on a GoPro camera. We had a lot of fun filming last year in Jackson Hole and, since it looks like we’re going to have close to 10 people at this season’s Annual, I wanted to throw another camera into the mix. Expect another ski and snowboard video sometime in February 2015. We’re heading out to Alberta and British Columbia.
I also ordered this mount for the camera:
But as I was ordering the camera, I started to think about what else I could use it for. And then it hit me: city tours. One of the things I love to do in the summer is ride my bike around the city and explore. I like to find areas I don’t know very well, find new developments I may have missed, and generally just get to know the city more intimately.
Being on a bike is really the perfect way to do this. You don’t cover enough ground walking and with driving you simply miss too much of the city. So what I want to do is strap my GoPro to my handle bars and bring you along for these exploratory bike tours. I think it could be a unique way to show you the city – even if you happen to also be from here.
How does that sound?
It likely won’t happen until the spring, but if you’re interested in joining me, let me know. I think this could be a lot of fun with a group of city geeks.
Image: GoPro
If you’ve been reading Architect This City since last winter, you might know that every year I go on one big snowboard trip with a group of guys I went to grad school with at Penn. Last year we went to Jackson Hole and Vail, and this year the plan is to go to Banff and Revelstoke.
We start planning it by the fall and so already we’ve been trying to sort out the details for this winter’s trip. But as we finalize the plans, one thing I’ve noticed is how I’ve automatically been trying to minimize the amount of driving that we’ll need to do. In fact, in a perfect world, we wouldn’t have to rent a car at all.
Now, small mountain towns aren’t usually the best for public transit, but there are often ways to get around that. When we were in Jackson, we took the public bus to get to the mountain every day, as did most people who lived or stayed in town.
This winter, the plan is to fly into Calgary and stay in Banff for the first leg of the trip. So I’ve been trying to figure out if there’s a train that can get us from Calgary to Banff and which hotels offer shuttle buses to the mountains. Because I’d rather not drive, and I know many of my friends feel the same way. It’s an added cost and it gets in the way of après ski.
What’s interesting about this, is that not only do I try and minimize the amount of driving I do here in Toronto, but I do it when I travel as well. And if you’ve been following the macro trends, you might know that many other people feel the same way. That’s why total Vehicle Miles Traveled in the US has been in falling since about the mid-2000s:
People are falling out of love with driving, and many believe that this shift is permanent. Here’s a recent report from the US PIRG Education Fund talking about just that:
Decline in driving among #Millennials will be permanent. Gov’t #urbanpolicy needs to adapt: New report @uspirg http://t.co/3mwH1oJFy4 #CPlan
— urbandata (@urbandata)
//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
I also think this shift is permanent – until maybe the nature of driving changes and cars start driving themselves. But at that point, it won’t be called driving anymore and there will probably be many other changes. So on this rainy Wednesday morning, my big bold prediction is that future generations will no longer drive.
What do you think?
I’m off this evening to Banff (and then Revelstoke) for a 10 day snowboarding trip. If you’ve been reading Architect This City since this time last year, you’ll know that this is an annual tradition that I started with a group of close friends from grad school. It’s our annual retreat to the mountains and it’s our 6th year doing. I hope we never stop.
So what happens to ATC?
Regular scheduled programming will continue as usual. But don’t be surprised if I change things up and make the content a bit more personal on some of the days. I’ve also decided to try out something new and video blog throughout the trip using Snapchat Stories. If you’d like to follow along, my username is donnelly_b. There will also be a more traditional video to follow.
Finally, if you happen to know Banff and/or Revelstoke well, or happen to be from out west, I’d love to hear from you. It’s always great to get local insights.
Image: Revelstoke via Flickr
This past week was Toronto’s first real snowstorm of the season. It was awesome. I love snow. And part of the reason I love it, is because it means snowboarding season is here. Yes, the “mountains” in Ontario suck, but Quebec and Vermont aren’t too far away and every February there is The Annual.
This year in preparation for the season I decided to splurge on a GoPro camera. We had a lot of fun filming last year in Jackson Hole and, since it looks like we’re going to have close to 10 people at this season’s Annual, I wanted to throw another camera into the mix. Expect another ski and snowboard video sometime in February 2015. We’re heading out to Alberta and British Columbia.
I also ordered this mount for the camera:
But as I was ordering the camera, I started to think about what else I could use it for. And then it hit me: city tours. One of the things I love to do in the summer is ride my bike around the city and explore. I like to find areas I don’t know very well, find new developments I may have missed, and generally just get to know the city more intimately.
Being on a bike is really the perfect way to do this. You don’t cover enough ground walking and with driving you simply miss too much of the city. So what I want to do is strap my GoPro to my handle bars and bring you along for these exploratory bike tours. I think it could be a unique way to show you the city – even if you happen to also be from here.
How does that sound?
It likely won’t happen until the spring, but if you’re interested in joining me, let me know. I think this could be a lot of fun with a group of city geeks.
Image: GoPro
If you’ve been reading Architect This City since last winter, you might know that every year I go on one big snowboard trip with a group of guys I went to grad school with at Penn. Last year we went to Jackson Hole and Vail, and this year the plan is to go to Banff and Revelstoke.
We start planning it by the fall and so already we’ve been trying to sort out the details for this winter’s trip. But as we finalize the plans, one thing I’ve noticed is how I’ve automatically been trying to minimize the amount of driving that we’ll need to do. In fact, in a perfect world, we wouldn’t have to rent a car at all.
Now, small mountain towns aren’t usually the best for public transit, but there are often ways to get around that. When we were in Jackson, we took the public bus to get to the mountain every day, as did most people who lived or stayed in town.
This winter, the plan is to fly into Calgary and stay in Banff for the first leg of the trip. So I’ve been trying to figure out if there’s a train that can get us from Calgary to Banff and which hotels offer shuttle buses to the mountains. Because I’d rather not drive, and I know many of my friends feel the same way. It’s an added cost and it gets in the way of après ski.
What’s interesting about this, is that not only do I try and minimize the amount of driving I do here in Toronto, but I do it when I travel as well. And if you’ve been following the macro trends, you might know that many other people feel the same way. That’s why total Vehicle Miles Traveled in the US has been in falling since about the mid-2000s:
People are falling out of love with driving, and many believe that this shift is permanent. Here’s a recent report from the US PIRG Education Fund talking about just that:
Decline in driving among #Millennials will be permanent. Gov’t #urbanpolicy needs to adapt: New report @uspirg http://t.co/3mwH1oJFy4 #CPlan
— urbandata (@urbandata)
//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
I also think this shift is permanent – until maybe the nature of driving changes and cars start driving themselves. But at that point, it won’t be called driving anymore and there will probably be many other changes. So on this rainy Wednesday morning, my big bold prediction is that future generations will no longer drive.
What do you think?
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