Flights
Direct connections from Europe to Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver, and from Asia to the west coast. Seven to eight hours from Paris to Montreal, ten to Vancouver. Domestic flights are essential for east-west travel: Toronto to Vancouver is four hours in the air and four days by road.
Two seasons
Summer, from June to September, is warm and humid in the east, dry in the west, with festivals everywhere and long daylight. Winter, from December to March, is long, snowy and cold — and it is also the season of skiing, snowshoeing and a particular quality of light. Autumn is short and gives the most spectacular foliage on the continent. Spring is muddy and unappealing.
Getting around
The train serves the Quebec–Windsor corridor but is slow; coaches are frequent and cheap; a car is close to indispensable outside the major cities. Winter tyres are compulsory in Quebec and strongly advised elsewhere, and driving on snow is a skill that has to be acquired rather than improvised.
Money and language
Canadian dollar, cards everywhere, tipping of fifteen to twenty per cent expected. Prices are displayed before tax: add roughly five to fifteen per cent at the till depending on the province. Both English and French are official federally; French is the official language of Quebec and English predominates elsewhere.
Orders of magnitude
| Return flight from Europe | CAD 450 to 1,100 depending on season |
|---|---|
| Mid-range hotel night | CAD 140 to 250 |
| Restaurant meal with tax and tip | CAD 25 to 50 |
| Car hire | CAD 50 to 100 a day, more in summer |
What holds everywhere
- Insurance covering medical costs and repatriation stops being optional as soon as local healthcare is limited. Check it actually covers the destination: many policies exclude areas under adverse travel advice.
- Carry cash. In much of the world cards work in the big cities and nowhere else. Check the ATM situation and your bank's charges before leaving.
- Leave margin on connections. A tight transfer on a thinly served route is expensive: the next flight may be tomorrow, or in three days.
- The real budget runs over two years, not one trip: repeated flights, paperwork, translations, legalisations, any support sent. It is always underestimated.