Welcome to That Travel Guy Blogspace

Over the past few years I have had a weekly travel column in the travel section of the Winnipeg Free Press every Saturday, and have hosted a weekly travel show on radio station CJOB in the same central Canadian city. While a name like Pradinuk would not seem overly complicated to prounounce when people see me in person or are introduced to me their first words are frequently, "Oh you're that travel guy." Hence the choice of http://www.thattravelguy.ca/.

I would have preferred a dot com but there seems to be another travel guy out there currently using it. My own background includes travel to over 50 countries so far. As I talk to fellow travellers, as much as I have traveled I realize my list of places I must still visit is very long compared to others. So many places...only so much time in a life to see it all. For almost 30 years I have operated a travel agency focusing mostly on leisure travel. I served on the national board of the Association of Canadian Travel Agents for years and was the National President for two years as well. I still enjoy serving on the regional Manitoba board.

In 2000 we opened a travel superstore called Journeys Travel & Leisure SuperCentre. It carries just about every travel product imaginable. It is also a swim wear and luggage centre and carries a wide range of travel clothing in brands like Tilley Endurables, Ex-Officio, and Royal Robbins just to name a few. What makes the store different is the services we include for people who live in this area. We have a pre travel health clinic with two nurses, we have a passport picture service and have six tanning beds for those who choose to pre-tan before leaving for their sun destinations.

But this blog is not about sales but about ideas and opinions...yours and mine. In this blog I will call issues as I see them and I look forward to your responses, whether you agree or not. We will talk about destinations, airline and tour operator policies, good and bad travel products you have used, and anything that has the connotation of travel.

Thanks for reading and I look forward to your feedback.

You can read my column every Saturday from wherever you are by going to http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/ then clicking on to the feature sections link and then on to the travel section. They usually hold past columns and freelance stories I write for the paper in the archive section on the right for up to three months. We also put past columns on our website as well. On the right you can read some of the destination stories I have written as well.

You can listen live to the radio show by going to http://www.cjob.com/ Sundays at noon central time, then clicking on listen live. A number of past shows can be heard by going to the stations audio vault.

by Ron Pradunik