Our oldest came home from Montreal wanting to take French in school. That’s what a city can do when it gets to a kid at the right age. Quebec isn’t just French-influenced. It’s French: the language, the food, the pace of it. Something about being somewhere that doesn’t bend to English made an impression that stuck.
Canada co-hosted this World Cup and had a summer worth remembering. Jonathan David’s hat-trick in a 6-0 win over Qatar was one of the group stage’s best performances. They beat South Africa on a last-minute strike to win their first ever World Cup knockout match. Then Morocco beat them 3-0 in the Round of 16 and it was over. A good run. A country that showed up for its moment. The country itself has been worth showing up for a lot longer than that.
Quebec City and Montreal
The most European city in North America is Quebec City, and it’s not close. Old Quebec, the walled upper town, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site with 400 years of French history built into it. The Chateau Frontenac sits above the St. Lawrence and looks like a castle because it essentially is one. The streets are narrow and cobblestoned, the signs are in French, and the food is genuinely good. None of it feels like a theme park version of Europe. It just is what it is.
Montreal, seen from Mont Royal. Two hours southwest of Quebec City.
Montreal is two hours southwest and makes its own argument: better food scene, more urban, younger energy. The two together make a Quebec road trip that doesn’t waste a day. And if you have kids in French class, or kids who might need a reason to care about French class, Montreal has a way of providing it.
Vancouver and What’s Past It
We stopped in Vancouver thinking we knew what Canada looked like. We didn’t. The mountains come down to the water. Stanley Park sits on a peninsula inside the city and feels like it shouldn’t fit there. The food is different, more Asian influence, more Pacific, less of the central Canadian identity we grew up associating with the country. It opened up the idea that Canada is a lot of different things depending on where you are.
Downtown Vancouver, where the mountains come down to the water.
Tofino, a ferry ride away on Vancouver Island’s wild Pacific coast.
Vancouver Island is a ferry ride away. Tofino on its west coast has wild Pacific beaches, old growth rainforest, whale watching, and a food scene that has no business being as good as it is for a town that size. Victoria on the south end is quieter, more British in character, easier. Further north, the Great Bear Rainforest covers 6.4 million hectares of coastal wilderness, one of the last intact temperate rainforests on earth. Spirit bears, grizzlies, humpback whales, orcas. Indigenous-guided small group tours into that landscape are the real thing. Not easy to get to. Worth the effort.
The Rockies
If you’ve never driven the Icefields Parkway between Banff and Jasper, it’s hard to explain what it looks like. Two hundred and thirty kilometers through the Canadian Rockies where almost every kilometer produces scenery that makes you pull over. Glaciers. Turquoise lakes. Mountain walls that don’t seem like they should be that close to a road.
Lake Louise photographs well and still looks better in person.
Lake Louise stops people cold. The color of the water photographs well and still looks better in person. The Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise sits at the edge of it, worth staying at least once. Go in September or early October when the larches turn yellow and the crowds thin out. The whole thing gets quieter and better.
Churchill and the North
Churchill, Manitoba sits on the western shore of Hudson Bay and has two seasons worth building a trip around. In October and November the polar bears gather on the coast waiting for the bay to freeze, one of the only places on earth where you can see wild polar bears at close range, from tundra vehicles designed for exactly this. Not a zoo version. The actual thing.
Churchill sees more wild polar bears at close range than almost anywhere else on earth.
In winter the Northern Lights appear above Churchill with a frequency that makes it one of the more reliable viewing spots in the world. The Yukon offers the same, with wilderness lodges and dog sledding and landscapes that have no urban equivalent.
Activities via Viator. Booking supports Schwan Travel Co.
Old Quebec by lamplight. Two hundred years of French history, still lived-in.
Canada is a short flight from the East Coast. The Rockies alone would be worth it. Quebec City alone would be worth it. A stopover in Vancouver might just change how you think about the whole country. It did for us.
Ready to Plan Canada?
Quebec City, Vancouver Island, the Rockies, Churchill: Canada works at almost every level of ambition and season. Tell us what’s calling to you, and we’ll go from there.
