vickimills57

Hi
A friend and I are currently planning our first ever trip to the east coast of Canada. We are 50 year old females who will be travelling from Australia and plan to travel via new York next July. We thought we would spend 4 days in USA and the rest of the time in Canada. We plan to be back in Australia the first week of August. Any helpful hints, suggestions re where to vist etc would be most welcome.
Cheers

BAK

First question... how are you getting from New York to Canada?

Second question... where is your North American dep[arture point back to Australia?

If you are flayng into and out of New York, you could rent a car for the visit, and that would get you everywhere you want to go.

If you rent in the USA and depart from Canada, the ross-border drop off gets more complicated, but can be solved.

And there's semantics problem -- to many Canadians, we call central Canada "eastern" Canada.

But, getting it right -- The three provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia are The Maritimes, and when you add in Newfoundland and Labrador, it is then called Atlantic Canada.

Since you wrote "east cost" let's assume you have Atlantic Canada in mind.

Without a rental car, you could take the train from New York to MOntreal, and the train from MOnteal to Moncton, N.B., or Halifax, N.S. Rent a car in either of these two cities, and you're fine for The Maritimes. You could also take the car on a ferry to Newfoundland, or return the car in Nova Scotia or New Brunswick, and fly to Newfoundland.

"Newfoundland and Labrador" is a prioviunce, but it really is two different places. Newfoundland is an island, and LAbrador is a big chunk of the mainland.

For visitors with limited time, Newfoundland is a very different, interesting, unique part of Canada well worth a visit. Labrador is far away and really remote and you can see wilderness other places, a lot more easily.

For two people, a rental car is really thebest way to see Atlantic Canada. And there is a lot to be said for putting in quite a few miles.

Can you tell us more about your interests? Wildflowers or the examination of hostroical documents or scenic photography or the study of dialects, or????

BAK

Judy_in_Calgary

Also, how long will your trip be?

vickimills57

Thanks for clearing up the semantics of it all.
We thought we may fly from NY to Toronto but as yet haven't booked any flights or finalised any details of our trip. We are waiting for the airfares to come down as we have been told by our travel agent that they should and will (!) as $3200 AUS is far too expensive for a return trip to NY.
We hope to depart here -Australia - on 30th June and return home on the 5th August.
We are interested in the theatre, galleries, scenery, architecture plus seeing how the locals live.
Cheers

laverendrye

If you are planning to visit the East Coast, you should fly to Halifax from New York. Toronto is a long two-day drive (over 1800km) from Halifax. If you are interested in seeing Toronto as well as the East Coast, then you might consider the train or flying.

BAK

Big-time professionals theatre is mostly Toronto -- low lecel professional and advanced amateur throughout Eastern Canada from Toronto to the Atlantic.

World class museums are Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal.

Toronto scenery is really pretty dull, and Montreal is not much better, but Newfoundland is ownderful, as are parts of Nova Scotia, New Brusnsick and Nova Scotia, especially Cape Breton.

The most interesting modern architecture is, again, Montreal and Toronto.

How thelocals live is, of course, everywhere, but Toronto has the most diverse population of any city, easily accessible, organized, more or less, by neighborhoods, all packed with excellent restaurants of whatever type you want. And we can sendyou to several resopdeintial neighborhoods each worth half a day or wandering around, comfortably, in Toronto.

But for fishing boats bobbing in the harbour and the ocean pounding the rocks and lobster from the fishermen, you need to head to the Maritimes.

I've never been to Australia, but I guess it's sort of like having a North American tourist go to Sydney and Melbourne, (That's Toronto and Montreal, except Montreal is French) or go to Darwin or Perth, which I think of as sort of like Halifax -- a real city, but far away.

As is the case with Australia, Canada'sa big place.

You might think about flying to Vancouver, spen ding two days there, and then flying to Toronto, renting a car to Halifax, and flying Halifax to New York, and home.

BAK

nbujic

Vancouver and WESTERN Canada deserve more than a few days. If you wish to see Toronto ( Niagara Falls) and the East , it is best to fly to Toronto from New York, maybe rent a car and drive to Kingston ( the thousand islands),Ottawa, Montreal . From there it is still a long wat further east. You may wish to fly to Halifax and rent a car again to see the Atlantic provinces. from Halifax you can fly back to New York.
By the way, we visited Sydney and Melbourne in Sept. --just LOVED it !

vickimills57

Thanks so much for ur input. It is really helpful to have the guidance of those who know. I will be seeking more and more advice as we make more plans and decisions.
And I am pleased to hear u loved ur visit to Australia, nbujic. It is a great place to live. I am in Melbourne and of course think it is the best state of all!