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Hello,
I recently migrated to Canada and have only spent the winter months here in Toronto. Now, given that the winter this year has either ended or soon would end I wonder what places in and around Toronto (I live here) are worth a visit before the coming winter. I google-searched but would lean towards personal recommendations based on experiences. Some pointers:
1. I've a car and am prepared to undertake trips of 6 hours (max) one-way.
2. The kind of places I would be interested in are those of scenic beauty, historical buildings, national parks etc.
Thank you for reading and thanks in advance for your reply!
East of Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal are attractive cities that have historic charm (for North America anyway). Quebec City is a bit further away than 6 hours but is most definitely worth the extra hour's drive.
All three cities are very dynamic and great places to be in the summertime.
Thanks Acajack! Are there places / sites in / around Toronto worth a visit?
What are your interests?
If you want to visit parks to go walking/hiking,
it will probably be more enjoyable in another month
since winter usually leaves a lot of paths in early spring muddy or flooded.
Point Pelee National Park is supposed to be one of the best bird-watching sites,
with peak activity sometime between April and May, I think.
It's a 3.5 hour drive southwest and the southernmost part of mainland-Canada.
We have some islands in the middle of Lake Erie further south,
like Pelee Island where you can visit wineries, farmland, small villages, beaches, cottages, more parkland etc.
and "Middle Island" which is our southernmost island, but also a bird-sanctuary. (off limits to people )
Hello,
I recently migrated to Canada and have only spent the winter months here in Toronto. Now, given that the winter this year has either ended or soon would end I wonder what places in and around Toronto (I live here) are worth a visit before the coming winter. I google-searched but would lean towards personal recommendations based on experiences. Some pointers:
1. I've a car and am prepared to undertake trips of 6 hours (max) one-way.
2. The kind of places I would be interested in are those of scenic beauty, historical buildings, national parks etc.
Thank you for reading and thanks in advance for your reply!
Sandbanks Provincial Park 45 min south of Belleville is pretty nice.
Huge sand dunes that are even bigger just outside the park near the town of West Lake. (up to 60 ft or 20 m)
The Grand Bend area is a popular beach area, (1 hr west of London, ON)
but unless you don't mind cold you'll probably want to wait until mid-summer.
Doesn't matter if it's forecast at 25 C in early-June (if we've had "seasonal" spring temps )
and the water is still like 10 C, it probably won't be above 16-17 C at the beach
and it will be accompanied by a 20+ km/h steady breeze off the lake!
Not nice imho unless you wanted to wear long sleeves.
Probably less crowded than our most popular beach; Wasaga Beach near Collingwood.
But Wasaga Beach should be one of the fastest big beaches to warm up,
since it's on Georgian Bay and the water is fairly shallow.
Fathom Five National (or Provincial?) Park near Tobermory. (4.5 hours northwest of Toronto on rural highways)
Has impressive limestone cliffs and caves, called "The Grotto" right on the water.
Similar with Grand Bend for temps.
A fun place to go hiking/camping is Kelso Provincial Park.
On the west side of Milton and you can see it from highway 401.
It's also called "Glen Eden Ski Resort" in the winter time, and it's still open right now, believe it or not.
I like Glen Eden as a ski resort better than some other Ontario resorts,
because it has longer steeper sections than somewhere like Talisman.
The Grand Bend area is a popular beach area, (1 hr west of London, ON)
but unless you don't mind cold you'll probably want to wait until mid-summer.
Doesn't matter if it's forecast at 25 C in early-June (if we've had "seasonal" spring temps )
and the water is still like 10 C, it probably won't be above 16-17 C at the beach
and it will be accompanied by a 20+ km/h steady breeze off the lake!
Not nice imho unless you wanted to wear long sleeves.
Probably less crowded than our most popular beach; Wasaga Beach near Collingwood.
But Wasaga Beach should be one of the fastest big beaches to warm up,
since it's on Georgian Bay and the water is fairly shallow.
Fathom Five National (or Provincial?) Park near Tobermory. (4.5 hours northwest of Toronto on rural highways)
Has impressive limestone cliffs and caves, called "The Grotto" right on the water.
Similar with Grand Bend for temps.
^^ Don't worry about being colder at Point Pelee though if you want to do spring bird-watching.
It should be warmer or at least similar with Toronto. Lake Erie is the southernmost and shallowest Great Lake so it would warm up much quicker. By mid-summer it should be noticeably more humid than Toronto, as well as warmer at night. I haven't been to Point Pelee in summer, but despite the higher humidity it's a long faily-narrow point with no tall buildings anywhere, so unlike the city of Windsor, I suspect it should be windy enough that it wouldn't feel "more oppressive" than a day in Toronto.
I also remembered "Long Point Provincial Park" is also pretty nice, and should be only 2.5 hours from Toronto or just over an hours south of Hamilton. Nearby is Port Dover, a popular beach-town with Hamilton residents, and the site of "Friday the 13th" biker parties. Long Point will be a little cooler than Toronto until at least mid-summer, but probably not as chilly as anywhere on Lake Huron, or the eastern end of Lake Ontario.
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