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Hello and welcome to Best Of Maclean’s, our new-look newsletter. Each Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday we deliver the top stories from Maclean’s directly to your inbox, showcasing the most interesting people, places and stories from across Canada.

Inside Canada’s cottage market frenzy

We call our vacation homes by many different names—cottages, chalets, cabins, camps. Call it what you will, for prospective buyers the message is quite clear: vacation’s over. Surging prices, bidding wars, blind offers—the search for seasonal real estate has become a battlefield. These are tales from 10 of Canada’s hottest vacation towns and the feeding frenzy over Canada's seasonal homes.

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“Empty promises are all that we have received”

"I fought shoulder to shoulder with Canadian soldiers. Now the government is leaving my family to be killed by the Taliban," writes Afghan interpreter Ghulam Faizi in this harrowing account of the ongoing dangers following the fall of Kabul. Read More

A homeowner’s worst nightmare

At the height of his operation, Arif Adnan Syed—who brazenly turned luxury home rentals into illegal rooming houses—had more than 100 tenants and was raking in tens of thousands of dollars each and every month. Catching him was simple. Evicting him proved almost impossible. Read More

How TikTok’s latest trend, kidcore, is bringing out the inner child

Led by popular TikToker Sara Camposarcone, the trend defined by bright colours, zany accessories and carefree instincts is taking nostalgia to another level. Read More

Anatomy of a Scene: Cottage-country comedy ‘The Lake’

Go behind-the-scenes on the set of the eight-episode Amazon Prime series filmed in North Bay and set in northeastern Ontario begins streaming on Friday. Read More

On newsstands now:

Cottage Industry: Tales from the national cottage market frenzy

Vacation properties have never been in such high demand. In this sweeping cross-country survey, Maclean’s looks at 10 of the most popular regions to buy a cottage. The July issue identifies what makes these spots so attractive and tells the stories of Canadians who bought cottages and cabins over the last few years, battling through a landscape of frenzied bidding wars and buying properties without even setting foot in the province.

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