The first time I heard that cottaging was a popular activity in Ontario, I was more than a little surprised - it's means something very different in the UK.

Now I'm over the initial shock, I'm thinking of taking up cottaging myself - it's part of the great Canadian dream after all.

Anyone else out there purchased a second property - what are the potential snags?

Bears, floods, neighbours, repairs, packing up to go packing up to come back.
Repeat events.

Will you be getting it for alll seasons or just summer. People here with beach huts oops sorry cottages travel 2 hours in their truck loaded to the gills Friday night and loaded again Sunday. For the Saturday isolation. Spend all summer on the lake and all winter on their snowmobiles.

But everyone of them go virtually every week and Parents have their kids over every weekend and it keeps everyone together, and it becomes that home form home stressfree, you get to know your neighbours have good ones great.

We get all that right now when we go camping

We go for the Saturday isolation too - a whole day by the lake with nothing too much to do and no deadlines or traffic to bug me - it's great.

Fly a kite, swim, fish and just enjoy not being in the city. Having somewhere for four seasons would be the aim - snowmobiling sounds like fun.

A friend of mine was talking about "Cottage Country" the other day. For some reason it put me in mind of Hampstead Heath

When I was a teenager, we would spend all of the summer (and most of our weekends at other times of the year) at our cottage in Ontario. That's one nice thing about Ontario - it has lots of lakes and cottages. In Canada, our weekends are precious.

I avoid it mainly because it tends to restrict you recreational opportunities. For instance, I once had a sailboat but unless I spent all of my recreational time on it I felt it was wasted. Same is true for a cottage.

If I get the urge I rent one for a few days. Same for an RV. Get your fix but avoid the upkeep.