Augusta and I woke up at Whistler’s Campground in Jasper National Park on our fifth day of roadtripping…
Times visited: 3 (1 day in 2017, 2 days in 2018, 1 day in 2018 and 6 days in 2023)
Cities visited: Toronto, Montréal and Calgary
Provinces and territories visited: Ontario, Quebec and Alberta
National parks visited: Banff and Jasper
Before the summer of 2023, I’d technically visited Canada three times, but the amount of time I’d spent on Canadian ground was less than 48 hours 😂 all three visits were long stopovers, two in Toronto with eight hours each time and one overnight stopover in Montréal. But for all three visits, I travelled into the city to explore and made the most of my time.
The first stopover in Toronto was en route to Los Angeles in the summer of 2017. I loved Toronto on my first visit and I even said to my travel buddy Amanda that I could imagine living there (in a city – that’s crazy for me!).
En route to Peru in the summer of 2018, my brother Brandon and I had the other two stopovers in Canada. First in Montréal where we spent the night and went exploring in the evening and the next day. We managed to see quite a lot and also met some raccoons after a gorgeous sunset on Mount Royal!
On the way back from Peru, we stopped over in Toronto, but this time I didn’t enjoy it at all. It wasn’t Toronto’s fault though, I just had terrible food poisoning (from Peru) and could manage nothing else than to lay on the grass by the harbour.
Fast forward to 2023, and I finally get to explore Canada for a bit longer than a stopover. While still technically a stopover en route to Alaska, I’d managed to extend it for six days without paying anything extra on the flights! My friend Augusta from the US joined me, and together we roadtripped, hiked and canoed our way through the Rocky Mountains in Banff and Jasper National Parks! It was an incredible trip full of gorgeous mountain views, the bluest lakes I’ve ever seen and lots and lots of wildlife!
