Amazing Race Canada - Week 1 - Niagara Falls, YYZ, YVR, YLW

Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada (source: Wikicommons)

We're a Canadian company, so we are understandably excited to watch The Amazing Race Canada unfold on our televisions, hosted by our very own Canadian Olympian, Jon Montgomery (he won gold in 2010 in skeleton... to call that race amazing would be an understatement!).

Being airport geeks (after all, we are the best people-powered world-wide airport ground transportation information service), we are especially interested in the airports the teams on The Amazing Race Canada will visit during the race.

Needless to say, we loved the Week 1 kick-off show, featuring Niagara Falls, Ontario (aka "the Canadian side") - along with its sister city over the border in Niagara Falls, New York, U.S.A. is the self-proclaimed "Honeymoon Capital of the World." The grandeur of the Falls of the Niagara River attracts millions of tourists every year, there to enjoy everything from the mist of the falls and the sometimes cheesy attractions, to the all natural beauty and hiking opportunities. We certainly saw the beauty last night!

Toronto Pearson International Airport (source: Wikicommons)

Toronto Pearson International Airport (YYZ) - serving just under 35 million passengers a year, Pearson was the world's 35th busiest airport in 2012 (how's that for a numerical co-incidence?), and Canada's busiest. By the way, for those that know the airport, if you haven't heard the good news, construction is underway on a rail connection to downtown Toronto, due to open in 2015.

Vancouver International Airport (source: double_feature on flickr)

Vancouver International Airport (YVR) - Canada's 2nd busiest airport served 17.6 million passengers in 2012, the same year it earned the Skytrax award of Best Airport in North America - for the 4th time in a row! Since the lead-up to the 2010 Olympics, YVR has been connected to downtown Vancouver via the Canada Line Skytrain. Next week's race preview showed the teams back here...

Kelowna International Airport (YLW) - serving under 2 million passengers a year, Kelowna's airport is growing by leaps and bounds with numerous innovations. It earned its "international" status when flights to Las Vegas, Los Angeles and several holiday destinations in Mexico were added to it's flight roster. The innovations? YLW's duty free shop features Okanagan wines, ski hosts meet winter flights to help skiers get to the right mountain shuttles, and, in 2013, hosted Canada's first Elections Canada Polling Place in an airport. And, oh, what a gateway to all the Okanagan has to offer, as we saw last night.

We've included links to our transportation guides for these destinations, in case you were so dazzled by the show that you want to visit!!

PS - if you missed the episode, you can watch it online at the official website above.