2 week Toronto to east coast road trip suggestions

June 1, 2016 12:49 PM

I've booked July 9th - 24th off for a family road trip to the maritimes. We're no sure how to start planning. We've never been on a long road trip to visit multiple cities, places before and are a little lost on how to plan this. We were thinking of taking this route: Toronto - Ottawa - Montreal - Quebec City - [something?] - Fredericton - Moncton - Charlottetown - Peggy's Cove - then back (through the US perhaps?) Is this too much? Any suggestions on where to stop or a better route? Will be travelling with my wife and two daughters (9 and 11).
posted by ijaaz to Travel & Transportation around Ogmore-By-Sea, SC (10 answers total)

Best answer: Sounds like a fun trip! I don't know too much about that part of the world, but I can import some generic road-trip wisdom.

1. If you're driving your own vehicle, make sure it's roadworthy, and in tip-top condition. Once during a road trip we had to scrap a car and take the Greyhound home. Not pleasant, especially since we were going to go to Disneyland.

2. Get CAA. They can be super-helpful if repairs should be needed on the road, there are also discounts on lodging and attractions. At AAA, we'd go in for a TripTik and personalized map of our whole trip route. So flipping fun! They also had guide books.

3. Don't spend whole days on the road, it's grueling. I'd say anywhere from 5-6 hours is about the most you can do with tweens. Relax your rules for screen time so they can watch DVDs or whatever on their devices during the ride. We used to sing and listen to top 40 radio. Aren't you glad you live in modern times?

4. When I drove across the US, we'd wake up, grab a bite, and then do some sightseeing. A museum, or attraction of some sort. We'd hit the road at about 3:00. This helped keep us out of rush hour traffic, and out of the deserts during the worst of the day (not really your problem.) We'd stop, eat dinner, and hang out in the room. Get a hotel with pools, so your girls can swim and burn off energy. They'll sleep better.

5. Let the girls have some input as to what they want to see. A trip to La Ronde in Montreal would be something to look forward to. Also, build in goofiness by stopping at Roadside Attractions. Encourage the girls to blog about their experiences, taking pictures of different poutines, or other regional specialties.

6. When stopping to eat, pick a local joint rather than a nationally known place. This isn't a hard and fast rule though. Once we were in a wide spot in the road and looking for breakfast, so we see a dumpy looking diner, my dad says, "How about THAT place?" My sister says, "There's a DOG in the window." We ended up at Sambo's.

7. We stayed at Motel 6 for most of our trips. They weren't fancy, but they were cheap and clean. They also always had pools. So much better than, I shit you not, the Razzmatazz Motel.

8. Tempers will get short at some point, that's a long time to be confined in a car or a motel room with your whole family. Be prepared to mediate some grumpiness.

Happy Trails!
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 2:02 PM on June 1, 2016 [1 favorite]

Growing up we did this trip several times. We'd stop in Riviere-du-Loup between Quebec City and Fredericton. I'm sure everyone from NB will hate me for this but I'd drive through the province as quickly as possible and spend more time in NS or PEI. Especially if your daughters are into Anne of Green Gables, PEI is well worth spending a couple days in.

Stay in Halifax/Dartmouth/Bedford rather than Peggy's Cove proper since there's nothing there really and the drive out there is pretty quick. There's a good walkable downtown in Halifax (plus a cheap ferry to Dartmouth) which would make a nice change from all the driving.
posted by hydrobatidae at 2:58 PM on June 1, 2016 [2 favorites]

I also found NB a little lacklustre.

When in Charlottetown eat here.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 4:30 PM on June 1, 2016

I remember four things about New Brunswick - Bay of Fundy (highest tides in the world), Magnetic Hill (entertaining for 30 minutes), covered bridge capital of Canada (a novelty when you drive by), and also that it's really deceivingly big due to the rolling hills and takes way longer to drive than you think. Skip and add more Nova Scotia, I loved Cape Breton island, Five island, all the roadside seafood shacks, everything. You can swim in the Atlantic if you're brave. PEI is also a good add for a day trip, I was underwhelmed by Anne of Green Gables but loved the red sand beach. Skip NB and do this.
posted by crazycanuck at 6:46 PM on June 1, 2016

Response by poster: Thanks for all of the advice. I'm definitely going to rent a car for the trip. I'm going to head to CAA and look into TripTik!
posted by ijaaz at 7:20 PM on June 1, 2016 [1 favorite]

I've spent a fair bit of time in Eastern Canada for work and pleasure and I agree with the recommendation to skip most of NB unless you're planning on doing Digby and/or Yarmouth in NS (which is A LOT of driving but the ferry helps). Fredericton is my favourite city in NB but it's a long drive and not really worth it. It's also a fairly boring drive since the endless forests get boring fast. And Saint John is really not worth it.

If you're stopping in Moncton anyway head out to Hopewell Rocks, and plan to be there at low tide to walk on the sea floor.

1-2 days in PEI is lots, and I agree that Cape Breton is worth it, even if you only drive up to Baddeck and around the west side. The Fortress of Louisburg is good if you like historical sites, but I prefer to stay outside of Sydney in one of the quaint little towns. You can also do a coal mine tour around there which is surprisingly cool but I can't remember the name of the museum.

If you're going to Peggy's Cove, I'd stay a couple nights in Halifax which is a lovely city, and if you like lobster, head past Peggy's Cove to Ryer Lobsters in Indian Harbour.
posted by scrute at 7:43 PM on June 1, 2016

Oh - and if your girls are tall enough and into that sort of thing, TREEGO in Moncton has a kids zipline/treetop trekking course.
posted by scrute at 7:47 PM on June 1, 2016

Response by poster: Ziplining would be great! Well, at least for one of the girls :)
posted by ijaaz at 7:51 PM on June 1, 2016

You're biting off a lot here; in my experience, a 3 to 5 hour drive can eat up a lot of a day: e.g. leave hotel at 8, eat breakfast by 9, drive an hour and a half, gas/bathroom/snack break until 11, drive another hour and a half to 1, eat lunch until 2, drive another hour, find hotel and check in, it's 3:30 PM and you've done nothing so far and you're tired. You've got four of them set up in your schedule, plus two shorter ones (Ott-Mtl and PEI-Halifax) and one 6 hour long marathon (QC to Fredericton).

Some things you can easily tag on to a half day drive; Peggy's Cove is really beautiful - but how many hours straight can you spend looking at lighthouses? Other places you can't easily; Montreal has an awful lot to see and do, for example - you could spend a half day there, but you're leaving so much on the table. By my count, you have five days substantially spent driving and that's just on the way there - you get to turn around and do the same in reverse.

I plan trips like this on a spreadsheet; I might set up each row to be one day with a few columns representing parts of the day (morning, midday, evening) and overnight (i.e. which city you're staying in). Start blocking off your drives and seeing how much time that leaves you:

Day  |   Morning       Afternoon        Evening    Overnight
9    |       Drive to Ottawa  |                  |  Ottawa
10   |   Parliament | Nat'l Gallery  |           |  Ottawa
11   |   History Museum   | Byward   | Drive Mtl |  Montreal

(Keep in mind that evenings tend to be limited in terms of what's open and available for kids, plus all this travelling is tiring!)

My recommendation is to either fly to Halifax and rent a car from there and concentrate on all the sights down east (Cape Breton! PEI! Lunenburg!) (with the specific recommendation of Shubenacadie Tidal Bore rafting) or to drive from Toronto but plan on not going past Quebec (I've heard great things about the Gaspe and Quebec City is amazing).
posted by Homeboy Trouble at 11:09 PM on June 1, 2016

If you do the return leg through the states you should consider taking the ferry from Yarmouth to Portland. It cuts a good portion of the repeat drive home out, leaving you with about 10 hours of drive time from Portland back to TO.
posted by cirhosis at 11:12 AM on June 2, 2016 [1 favorite]