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The Butchart Gardens – Victoria, British Columbia
Badge of Awesome Communities invites you to share your favourite things to see and do in cool destinations around the world. We caught up with the folks from The Butchart Gardens — one of our featured attractions from the Vancouver area — to learn about what they have to offer and what they think makes their community…
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Backyard Axe Throwing League (BATL) – Kitchener, Ontario
Badge of Awesome Communities invites you to share your favourite things to see and do in cool destinations around the world. We caught up with the folks from Backyard Axe Throwing League (BATL) — one of our featured attractions from the Waterloo Region area — to learn about what they have to offer and what…
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Adventure Rooms Canada – Kitchener, Ontario
Badge of Awesome Communities invites you to share your favourite things to see and do in cool destinations around the world. We caught up with the folks from Adventure Rooms Canada — one of our featured attractions from the Waterloo Region area — to learn about what they have to offer and what they think…
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Dunfield Theatre Cambridge – Ontario
Badge of Awesome Communities invites you to share your favourite things to see and do in cool destinations around the world. We caught up with the folks from Dunfield Theatre Cambridge — one of our featured attractions from the Waterloo Region area — to learn about what they have to offer and what they think…
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Anna Mae’s Bakery and Restaurant – Millbank, Ontario
Badge of Awesome Communities invites you to share your favourite things to see and do in cool destinations around the world. We caught up with the folks from Anna Mae’s Bakery and Restaurant — one of our featured attractions from the Waterloo Region area — to learn about what they have to offer and what…
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Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery – Ontario
Badge of Awesome Communities invites you to share your favourite things to see and do in cool destinations around the world. We caught up with the folks from the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery — one of our featured attractions from the Waterloo Region area — to learn about what they have to offer and what they…
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Pirate Adventures – Ottawa, Ontario
Badge of Awesome Communities invites you to share your favourite things to see and do in cool destinations around the world. We caught up with the folks from Pirate Adventures Ottawa — one of our featured attractions from the Ottawa, Ontario area — to learn about what they have to offer and what they think…
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Take a Boat Trip to the Tip with Long Point Tours – Turkey Point, Ontario
Long Point: With its secluded beaches and colourful history of pirates, shipwrecks and sunken treasure, you’d half expect to find it somewhere in the Caribbean. Instead, this rare ecological gem is a short two-hour drive from Toronto, Ontario on the shores of Lake Erie.
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Thinking Things Through: Lessons learned from nearly swallowing a severed human toe
There are 3 items on my ultimate bucket list. Joining Captain Dick’s World Famous Sour Toe Cocktail Club is one of them. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this… unusual… drinking tradition, Sour Toe cocktails are found exclusively at the Downtown Hotel bar in Dawson City, Yukon, Canada. Entry into the prestigious club…
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Failing Your Way to Success: Lessons learned from being blindfolded and left in a farmer’s field
Whenever my extended family gets together you can usually count on three things: a lot of boxed wine, a lot of Euchre and a lot of jackassery. Our Easter celebration a couple years ago delivered on all three counts and included an activity that my Van Osch cousins came up with: the Blindfold Game.
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Discover a cool way to watch Old Faithful blow: Yellowstone National Park, USA
Jam-packed with the world’s largest collection of geysers, Yellowstone National Park literally explodes with awesomeness. No visit to the park is complete without a visit to Old Faithful, the world-famous thermal pressure cooker that spews a roaring column of boiling hot water over 100 feet in the air every 91 minutes or so.
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Cool things to do in Grey County, Ontario
Badge of Awesome Communities There’s adventure around every corner! Badge of Awesome Communities celebrates great destinations around the world and invites you to share your favourite things to see and do in those places. Check out the video to learn about this project’s near-death origin story, discover what others are saying about Grey County and…
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Go see Notre Dame Fighting Irish college football game – South Bend, Indiana
Make no mistake: I’m no sports fan. The last time I watched a full hockey game, the Nordiques were still a thing. When I get invited to a Super Bowl party, I usually have to look up who’s playing beforehand. And I still have no clue how offside works in soccer. So when my girlfriend…
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Cycle for Change: Otesha bike tours
Welcome to beautiful British Columbia. Home of the Canucks, the West Coast Trail, Bryan Adams… and freakishly large zucchinis?
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Grind it out at the Grouse Grind in Vancouver, British Columbia
Welcome to Mother Nature’s Stairmaster. On paper, the 2.9 km trail hardly seems daunting. However, when you get to the foot of the Grouse Grind and realize that it comes with its own “you might die” warnings, it starts to sink in that this might be more than a leisurely stroll.
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Bicycle around Angkor Wat: Cambodia
The world is full of awesome things to see. But oftentimes, how you see something matters just as much as what you see. This week’s Blue Marble Badge of Awesome goes to Jon Chilton, for sharing his bicycling experience around temples in Cambodia.
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Shoot Blow Darts in Japan
As the Baby Boomer generation gets older, more and more attention is being paid to “senior-friendly” activities. Your mind may automatically go to things like Bridge, shuffleboard or knitting (or Guerrilla Knitting if you’re super cool). But a rather unconventional activity is picking up steam in Japan: blow darting.
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Play Dodgeball World Domination
My brother Dan introduced me to a great variation of classic Dodgeball. Here he is to explain: “At the school where I teach, students are in charge of organizing and running intramural activities this year. They have started with an old-school favourite: Dodgeball. However, they have introduced numerous variations on the game to keep the…
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Do a Photo Scavenger Hunt
Photo scavenger hunts are a great, low-impact, low-cost alternative to the classic “find and collect” game. Whether you’re looking for a fun activity for your corporate event or just want something to do with your buddies on a Saturday afternoon, a photo scavenger hunt is a quick and easy thing to whip together. As the…
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Donate Blood
One of the most awesome, simple and selfless ways you can help somebody is by being a blood donor. In 2008, at age 27, I was diagnosed with Chronic Mylogenous Leukemia. The doctors gave me 40-50% of surviving. Despite the odds, my doctors and I were determined to do everything in our power to beat…
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Go on a Retreat: Washington meets WiFi in Virginia, USA
I think some people thought me strange to drive 9 hours to spend a week in Winchester, Virginia on a “writing retreat.” After all, I work from home. Couldn’t I get the same work done there? Maybe. But I feel there are many advantages to getting away from your daily routine and surroundings. Virginia proved…
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Remember: Wartime letters from my Grandpa
Remembrance Day is November 11 – a time for us to reflect on our freedom and honour the brave men and women who served (and continue to serve) our country in both times of war and peace.
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Assemble a Book of Encouragement
A couple weeks ago I wrote about the birthday “human art show” my friends and family performed for me while I was in the hospital undergoing chemotherapy treatment. Another uplifting and awesome thing they pulled together was a “book of encouragement.”
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Host a recipe swap night
Here’s a simple idea that’s both a fun social activity as well as a way of beefing up your personal cookbook (or vegging it up as the case may be). Throw a Recipe Swap party. The rules are simple: Bingo-bango-bongo, you’ve got 10 new recipes in your playbook. If you want, you can also choose…
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Sandboard the Dunes: Peru, New Zealand, Namibia and more
Growing up in Canada, tobogganing factored big in my childhood. Each winter the hills around Port Albert, Ontario became the grounds for epic battles with my siblings and cousins. I often felt bad that people living in warmer climates were missing out on this awesome activity. But then Ashraf Dean submitted this photo of him…
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Work abroad
Working overseas has many advantages. It looks great on a résumé. It lets you really immerse yourself in the day-to-day life of another country and culture. It’s a great way to make overseas travel affordable. It gets you out of your comfort zone and helps you grow as a person. It broadens your perspective and…
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Perform a human art show
On October 15th I celebrated my 4-year bone marrow transplant anniversary. Or, “transplantiversary”, as my friend Tina calls it. Four years! Holy crap! In many ways it seems like yesterday I was undergoing treatment for leukemia. In other ways, it seems like a lifetime ago. Either way, I have to pinch myself sometimes to remind…
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Play Tri-Pong
Rainy days are the mothers of invention. While visiting my friend Rob’s cottage, he taught us how to play a simple, yet exhausting version of ping pong. This is Tri-Pong. A big difference from your average ping pong game is that the players are working together, not against each other. Another big difference is that…
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Take a soak in the Banff Hot Springs, Alberta, Canada
I’ve never had much of a fashion sense. Most of my clothes are unfit for a blind hobo. Despite this complete ineptitude and disinterest in anything to do with fashion, I knew the moment I laid eyes on that old fashioned bathing suit in the display case at the Canadian Rockies Hot Springs in Alberta,…
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Yarnstorm the streets: Graffiti Knitting
When I think of knitting, my 86-year-old grandma comes to mind. When I think of graffiti, an angry youth who wasn’t hugged enough as a child comes to mind. When I think of combining knitting and graffiti, my mind explodes from the ensuing awesomeness.
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Go Geocaching
Ever wanted to be a pirate and search for buried treasure? Is your favourite part about Easter the egg hunt? Do you pride yourself in your ability to find lost car keys? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then geocaching just may be for you. I’ve wanted to go geocaching for years…
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Visit the Moeraki Boulders, New Zealand
Tina Coghlan submitted this photo into the “That’s Awesome” Photo Contest of the Moeraki Boulders in New Zealand. I thought they were so cool they deserved their own Badge of Awesome post.
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Host a pasta dinner fundraiser for your birthday
Last week I introduced you to Nicole Smith, who completed the Susan G. Komen 3-Day walk to end breast cancer. Well apparently the apple doesn’t fall too far the tree. Because this week’s Badge of Awesome goes to her son, Keagan, who recently celebrated his 10th birthday in a very awesome way.
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Play Spoons (with vigour)
Spoons was a very popular card game in the Martin household growing up. I’ve played a few variations of it over the years but the general idea remains the same. Click here for the full rules. Some people play that when you get a set of four, you don’t actually yell out SPOONS! This adds…
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Have a beer at Oktoberfest, Germany
Prost. Schnitzel. Lederhosen. Oompah. Ziggy zaggy ziggy zaggy, oy oy oy. If these words confuse you, odds are you’ve never been to Oktoberfest. As a resident of the Kitchener-Waterloo area in Ontario for many years, I’ve attended my fair share of Oktoberfest events. If you do go, prepare to have your fill of sausage, sauerkraut,…
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Walk to end breast cancer: The Susan G. Komen 3-Day
Today’s post is dedicated to my friend and mentor, Myrta Rivera, who passed away of cancer earlier this week. One of the best people I’ve ever known. Cancer sucks. Fighting cancer is awesome. As a cancer survivor myself, I know all too well how important family, friends and community are to the journey. One of…
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Chase some cheese: Cooper’s Hill Cheese-Rolling, Gloucestershire England
I spent a lot of time this past summer watching the London 2012 Olympics on TV. And while England put on a good show, there’s one sport I was disappointed didn’t get any coverage at all. A sport from their own backyard no less: Cheese-rolling.
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![[Blog] Hanging with Fred Penner photo: That’s awesome](https://badgeofawesome.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/fred-penner-222x160.jpg)
[Blog] Hanging with Fred Penner photo: That’s awesome
Voting is now open for the “That’s Awesome” Photo Contest. Check out the entries and vote for your favourite! I don’t typically “geek out” and I’ve never really been into following/stalking celebrities. But let me tell you: when I saw Fred Penner–my favourite and cherished childhood musician and TV personality–perform at the Dawson City Music…
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Go WWOOF’ing: World Wide Opportunities On Organic Farms
A couple weeks ago I talked about my experience volunteering on a refugee camp in Ghana. Keeping up with the theme of volunteer travel, this week’s Buddha Belly Badge is all about WWOOF’ing. WWOOF stands for World Wide Opprtunities On Organic Farms. It pairs willing workers (affectionately known as WWOOFers) with organic farmers looking for…
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Pipe down the sun: Port Albert, Ontario
If you blink you could very well miss Port Albert. You’ll find this tiny speck on the map on the shores of Lake Huron in Southwestern Ontario. Home to such famous landmarks as the Port Albert General Store, the Inn at the Port and a fish ladder at the “old bridge,” you won’t find much…