Hi everyone,
We'll be driving from Toronto to Mahone Bay in Nova Scotia in August. Can anyone tell me the fastest route (we don't want to spend precious vacation time driving), best place to stop overnight, and how long we can expect each leg of the route to be?

The only other time we drove there we were stopping in St. John, NB, on the way. We drove through Quebec and down through NB. Is there a faster route? What about going through Maine and taking the car ferry? I'd really appreciate the benefit of your experience.

I think your best route is the one you took. The roads through Maine are very small and slow. The ferry doesn't exactly save you time, although it is a novelty and provides a break from driving.

The only other possibility is to get off the TransCanada at/near Edmunston and take the "Renous Highway" going east across to the province, to Miramichi area. From there, you can drive down the east coast of NB. About the same amount of time as the TransCanada that you took last time through Fredericton. Maybe others can comment in the NB forum about the relative merits of the T-Can vs. Renous.

andiegirl

The Trans-Canada route through QC and down NB is around 1,870km. [It doesn't go through Saint John, NB however, so I'm not sure what route you took exactly.]

One alternative is to go through Niagara Falls, then I-90 (New York Thruway & Massachusetts Turnpike), and then up I-95 through Maine. It's about 2,030km; but more of it is freeway travel. Portland, ME is about half-way.

Like Andiegirl says, taking the ferry will not really save time.

Re>we don't want to spend precious vacation time driving<

False premise.

If you go the fstest way (and most boring) you spend four days round trip just putting in the miles. Non-vacation.

But if you slow down and go an interesting way, and add one day to the trip, at least three of those five days become interesting.

The ferry only saves time if you don't have to wait for it.

I've driven from Toronto to Moncton a lot.

Fastest and mostt boring ...leave Toronto at 6 a.m., 401 to Quebec border, cross the St. Lawrence at the Champlain Bridge in the early afternoon, trans-Canada past Quebec City, ans stay the night in some small town on the south shore of the St,. Lawrence.

Second day head south through Edmunston and Frederiction, Sussex, Moncton, to Halifax and south.

But taking three days, going through NY state, New Hampshire, Maine is a whole lot more enjoyable.

Take the Quebec City route home instead, leaving Mahone BAy really early in he morning, and having dinner in Quebec City.

BAK

Hi and thanks everyone for your replies. I'm going home to look at maps.

Sorry to disappoint you, BAK, but yes we do want the fastest, most boring route possible. We want to maximize our time at the cottage. I think the route you describe ('leave Toronto at 6, etc.) may be our best bet.

You're so right that there's much to see along the way and in the past we've done a three-week driving vacation of NB, NS, PEI, Maine and Vermont, meandering and stopping at whatever looked interesting. This isn't that kind of vacation for us, though. We want to get to the cottage asap and 'live' there for 2 weeks, exploring the nearby towns and getting in a lot of down-time. Then we're going to get home by the same boring but quick route.

Thanks to all of you, though, for your excellent advice.

So, none of you think I-90/95 would be faster than Trans-Canada?

We drove from Yarmouth, NS to Ottawa via Quebec City in -- believe it! -- 8 hours of driving, plus the "Cat" from Yarmouth to Bar Harbour.

So if Ottawa to Toronto is 4 hours on a REALLY good day, you could spend less than 12 hours on the road, since you can go direct from Montreal to Toronto (or vice versa) rather than passing by Ottawa.

Bar Harbor to Ottawa in 8 hours? It's over 500 miles, with a significant part over two lanes in ME & NH with many towns enroute. I think that's optimistic.

I've made this drive quite a few times. My father believes that stopping overnight is for wimps, so he always takes the all-Canadian route, with its abundance of Tim Horton's to get ample caffeine. But I need to stop overnight.

Each of the non-ferry routes has its pros and cons, but in the end they work out to be quite close in time.

The Canadian route is quite dull, but the speed limit in NB is up to 110km per hour in a lot of places, so that's speeded things up a bit. And you get to avoid potential delays at border crossings.

As rkkwan pointed out earlier, the I90/95 route probably is the fastest because it is mostly on higher speed highways, but can be the most variable because of potential delays in border crossings and at toll boths, especially on Fridays and Sundays in the summer. You can save a little time by taking the "airline route" from Bangor to St. Stephen rather than the I-95 all the way up. It's also a pretty dull drive, but the big upside of this route is that halfway is roughly Freeport, Maine - home of LL Bean (open 24/7)!!

You should consider taking the CAT ferry one way. It isn't worth it for me, other than as a diversion because my ultimate destination is in northern NS (ie, it takes just as long to get there and costs a whole lot more). But because you are going to Mahone Bay it will save you a lot of driving and could even save total travel time if you can time the ferry to minimize waiting.

I knew this was the right place to ask -- thanks!

Lovesprada - what is the airline route from bangor to st. Stephens? I am about to drive it from NYC.

The "airline" route is ME-9 from Bangor to Calais. Connects to NB1 in New Brunswick.

It is shorter than staying on I-95, and with no major towns until Calais/St. Stephens, it is the route to take.

That's it. As long as you don't mind passing the occasional slow vehicle on two lane roads, it's a good drive.

Thanks!! Any time I can save driving is a godsend!

Have you tried freetrip.com ?
It will give you routing, miles, time and hotels along the way in your price range.

Thanks, everyone. And Ronkala, I'll definitely take a look at freetrip.com -- it sounds interesting.

Ronkala,
I just tried FreeTrip -- what a blast! It took a couple of seconds and gave me a perfect outline of the drive.
Thanks so much -- this is going to be a permanent travel tool for me.