Best thing about Toronto/SW Ontario (low crime, bus, rich)

[Redrum237]

In my opinion, is location. Within a ten hours' drive, aside from obviously Toronto itself, you have Chicago, Ottawa, Montreal, Quebec City, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Washington DC. I challenge anyone to think of a place anywhere on Earth with that many interesting cities within a day's drive, outside of Europe.

[sb360]

Multiculturalism
Food
Women
Communities
Low crime


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[botticelli]

Originally Posted by sb360

Multiculturalism
Food
Women
Communities
Low crime

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Multiculture is not a Toronto thing. Any big city in NA has that.

Food? Mediocre at best when compared with other metro areas with 5M+ people.

Women? they are the same as anywhere else.

Communities? Which cities do NOT have good and bad communities?

Low Crime? Only average or even slightly high when compared with big cities in other developed countries (Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Tokyo, Hong Kong). Toronto is only "safe" when compared with American cities, which are the outliners than the norm.

I honestly do NOT understand why Canadians think Canadian cities are incredibly safe. Put in a global context among all rich countries, Canada probably is on the higher side when it comes to crime rate. We should know there is a world outside the USA.

[botticelli]

Originally Posted by Redrum237

In my opinion, is location. Within a ten hours' drive, aside from obviously Toronto itself, you have Chicago, Ottawa, Montreal, Quebec City, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Washington DC. I challenge anyone to think of a place anywhere on Earth with that many interesting cities within a day's drive, outside of Europe.

OK, you first excluded Europe, one of the most interesting continent on earth.

Toronto is within 10 hours to 8 big interesting cities. Big deal. In many other continents, especially Asia, that's normal, such as in China and Japan, among other countries. Unless you think non-Western countries are not interesting.

Take Shanghai for example, it is within 12 hours drive to

Suzhou, 1 hour
Wuxi, 2 hours
Hangzhou, 2 hours
Shaoxing, 3 hours
Nanjing, 3 hours
Zhoushan, 4 hours
Qingdao, 8 hours
Wuhan, 10 hours
Xiamen, 12 hours

In Japan, Tokyo is within 8 hours drive to pretty much every single Japanese city, including Kyoto, Osaka, Nagoya, Kobe, Fukuoka, Sapporo.

Before you start thinking what are these, all these cities are big, economical powerful and interesting, and many with 1000+ years of history, much longer than cities like Ottawa and Quebec City. Honestly, Ottawa takes one day to see and you never have to return in the next 10 years.

[tarp]

If it's purely "shooting distance" to all the east coast cities that you're looking for, somewhere in Pennsylvania would probably be the best. Somewhere like Scranton would put you within 6 hours of seven cities:

4.5 hours to Washington, D.C.
2 hours to New York
2 hours to Philadelphia
5 hours to Pittsburgh
5 hours to Boston
6 hours to Toronto
5 hours to Ottawa
6 hours to Montreal

That's a lot of big cities within a half day's drive.

[LEFTIMAGE]

I have no issue with SW Ontario-Toronto and quite like the entire area. However, I wouldn't consider location one of it's super-strong points. In fact, compared to many NE cities I'd say location is a bit of a drag...

I mean all the US East coast cities are (obviously) better positioned. I'd even argue Montreal is better positioned.

Not to mention, a ''10-hour drive'' doesn't make for a very attractive short trip destination...

[donniedarko]

I wouldn't call Toronto SW Ontario, I'd say it's just plain southern. SW tends to refer to Chatham-Kent and places like that.

My favourite things about Toronto are the cosmopolitanism, the fact it's in Canada, the weather is almost perfect 4-season, it's a large city but you still feel like you have room to breathe, it's very close to a lot of cool places, you could be in Montreal, New York, Chicago, Boston, the Northwoods or even the American South within a day's driving.

[botticelli]

Originally Posted by donniedarko

it's a large city but you still feel like you have room to breathe,

I think it applies to any large city in north America except Manhattan, which is not a city but only part of a city.

No city here are large and offer no room to breathe. All of them have plenty of space with tons of green space and predominantly sparsely populated low rises (other four boroughs of NYC, Chicago, LA, Philly, Boston etc).

[botticelli]

Originally Posted by LEFTIMAGE

I have no issue with SW Ontario-Toronto and quite like the entire area. However, I wouldn't consider location one of it's super-strong points. In fact, compared to many NE cities I'd say location is a bit of a drag...

I mean all the US East coast cities are (obviously) better positioned. I'd even argue Montreal is better positioned.

Not to mention, a ''10-hour drive'' doesn't make for a very attractive short trip destination...

I totally agree.
Toronto's position is actually kind of awkward, making if kind of close to both northwestern and midwest US (10 hours each to NYC and Chicago), but nothing is within a comfortable driving distance. Does anyone really think 10 hours drive is nothing? I took a bus once and even felt it was exhausting！Toronto is only close to Buffalo, but what does one go to Buffalo for?

I would argue that Kingston is better positioned - 7 hours to NYC, Boston, Philly.

If you want to be close to both NE and MW, Hamilton is a better choice. Actually by looking at the map, I have always wondered how come Toronto becomes big, not Hamilton.

[Redrum237]

I realise 8-10 hours isn't a super short drive, but my point is, Toronto has the highest number of what I would deem exciting cities within that range (along with Buffalo and Hamilton and other cities nearby). Other places to the south and/or the east may have more cities within a 5-7 hour drive, but they'd be a long, long distance from Chicago or Quebec City for instance. My point is, Toronto and the surrounding area have the most of what I'd deem exciting cities that could be reached within a day's drive.