illusion

Has anyone done a roadtrip in Ontario, can you recommend routes and places to visit.

Souvenir

Ontario is about four times the size of the UK. Could you narrow your search a bit?

MikeUK

I have done many trips from one side to the other and up along highway 11 too...

What do you want to see... trees or corn

illusion

I haven't decided whether it is going to be the Norther or Souther Ontario yet, but just thought to hear from people on the experience and places they enjoyed on their trip.

Interested in seeing nature not cities.

dbd33

There's more than that, there are Mennonites in their buggies and there are some giant roadside attractions, one's an apple, one's a nickel. One could find enough of interest in Ontario to fill most of a weekend.

hot wasabi peas

If you want to see nature, get out of your car.

What about a guided canoe trip? It's a fantastic way to go, IMO.

Not a personal endorsement of this company as I've never used them but I've gone on guided canoe trips in Ontario and loved them. The link is to give you an idea of what the trips are like. http://www.missinaibi.com/photo.htm

dbd33

Stumbled across this list of roads thought to be good for motorbikes :

http://www3.sympatico.ca/elhum/todo_nor.htm

Souvenir

Wholly unrelated to road trips but this, from the Globe & Mail, is a classic!

"Things were looking even worse for the Liberals early Thursday morning after Ms. Parrish, who has already said she would support her former Liberal party, had stomach pains and it was feared she wouldn't make the vote.

Later, she said: "Come hell or high water, there's no frigging way I'm going to let one ovary bring the government down," and vowed to appear.

Ms. Parrish was indeed present for the vote."

HEL1965

The trip we did back in '99, whilst visiting my brother in law, involved driving up to Tobermory from Toronto along Georgian Bay and taking the Ferry over to Manitoulin Island. From their we crossed over the casueway at Little Current to stay in Elliot Lake, where we stayed near our family. From their we drove through Sudbury (saw the nickel and went down the mine) and headed south via Huntsville and the edge of the Algonquin. We also headed down to Niagra on the Lake and of course the falls. We stayed on Manitoulin for a few nights and stayed up in Elliot Lakes for a while, too, and overnighted on route heading south. This is a lot of miles and I would suggest picking an area like the Algonquin or Georgian Bay and doing them well rather than driving 4+ hours a day. Tend to only see roadkill unless lucky otherwise.

Canadian Kate

Unfortunately, road trips in Ontario are NOTHING compared to roadtrips in England. I love the availability of villages and historic sights in England. You could drive for eight hours in Ontario and see... not much.

My favorite weekend driving trips are to Picton -- Sandbanks is a nice beach in the summer --closest thing my husband can find to the English seaside. Kingston is nice. Stratford is nice. However, if you ever get the chance to go to Vieux Quebec (Quebec's Capital), it is my favorite non-European destination!

pollard

On the places to visit bit, we can recommend stratford to you, especially doing the summer time when there productions going on at the theatre there. Yesterday, we went to Elora Gorge for the first time, it's in the fergus area.

You get to see the gorge, walk on the rocks there, and if you move onto the quarry, you can see a lot of teenagers with tubes, jumping into the water from a height.

dbd33

We did a trip something like this over the weekend, Toronto to Tobermory, ferry, stayed in a tipi on Manitoulin Island, up past Sault Ste Marie, camped on the shore of Lake Superior at Pancake Bay Provincial Park, came back via Sudbury. It was a bit of a test of our ability to travel and camp with sixty pounds of lively dog in a Mustang convertible. It worked out well and we'll now try a long trip.

Best views were from highway 6 north just before leaving Manitoulin Island, from 17 along the North Channel of Lake Huron and, best of all, from the lookout tower at Pancake Bay.

On the ferry there was a map suggesting different driving tours, the circle tour of Lake Huron looks a good one and, at 2400 miles, it's not a ludicrous distance.

dbd33

The Big Chute marine railway at Coldwater is a possible day trip for anyone who can get to Elora. Boats are loaded on to a giant rail car, lifted up a cliff, over the road and dumped into a river, it's not the sort of thing one sees every day. There's also the lift lock at Peterborough but it lacks the drama of the railway.

dbd33

I had an email requesting more detail of the trip to Manitoulin. In case it's of general interest, I'll put it here.

We left Toronto at 6:30 on Saturday morning. It's 220 miles to the ferry, it sails at 1:30 and you have to be there at 12:30, so we had all kinds of time. We stopped for breakfast somewhere north of Brampton and took secondary roads from there. We took the coast road around Lion's Head and stopped several times to admire the view and so the dog could swim. The ferry cost $28 for the car and $13 per adult and took an hour and three quarters.

We drove around Manitoulin, nice beaches, no bugs to speak of. There are no chain establishments on the island, no Tim Horton's or McDonalds, I like that.
We stayed in someone's back yard in a tipi. This was luxury camping, the tipi contained a bed and some other furniture thing (dunno, it was dark and we'd been drinking). Dinner (venison, mash, carrots, salad) was served, snacks and breakfast provisions set out and we had the fire built and lit for us. Urban kids would love it. Cost for two people was $80.50, details from
[email protected]

In the morning we motored north, highway 6 over the swing bridge is the only option to drive off the island, but otherwise we were able to do a lot of the driving on unsurfaced roads. We saw deer and moose and avoided hitting either. At about Blind River we switched to driving on the highway so as to make up time. Had we stuck to the highway and not kept stopping we could probably have made it from Manitoulin to Pancake Bay in five hours or so. At the Pancake Bay park we camped on the edge of the beach, swam, hiked a couple of trails and enjoyed a spectacular sunset. Bugs were an issue in the woods but not on the beach. Cost of the site was $28, there was almost no one in the park, the gatehouse was even closed, payment to be deposited in a slot. I bet it's not so nice in August.

We left the site about 8:30 and came back across highway 17 and down 69. We went off into a reserve for an hour or so looking for moose and sliding the car around on mud roads. We got to Parry Sound at 1:30, filled ourselves with chips from a truck and set off down the 400. It's about an hour and a half to the 401 and about 2 hours from there to here.

I don't think one could do the loop, Tobermory, Sudbury, back to Toronto without an overnight stop. The farthest I've been in one day from here was Omaha, that's 900+miles but all of it on major roads, there aren't any major roads up to Manitoulin. I'd think it a waste not to stop anyway, getting out of town is rather the point.

Cathairtumbleweeds

... here's what Scott and I fancy...

http://www.roadsideattractions.ca/ontario.htm

Wendy

15 more sleeps to go