Trip to Montreal, through everywhere!
 

Hi, all,

This is my first Canadian post, so please bear with me.

We are planning to go to Montreal in August, but would like to (possibly) go through Lake George and Niagara Falls, and on to Montreal & Quebec City. Is this do-able in 7 or 8 days, or at all? We will be driving from the NY area. If this is do-able, can anyone suggest a possible itinerary?

Thank you for your assistance!

Yes, it's doable.

Day 1 NYC-Niagara Falls
Day 2 NF-Toronto
Day 3 Toronto - Montreal
Day 4 Montreal
Day 5 Day trip to Quebec City
Day 6 Montreal - Lake George
Day 7 Lake George - Home

You can add time in Toronto, Quebec City, or also visit Ottawa between Toronto and Montreal, etc...

Thank you, rkkwan,

We hadn't planned to visit Toronto. We wanted to spend 2 days in Montreal & 2 days in Quebec City.

Is Toronto missable?

Perhaps a better question is "can we drive NF-Montreal in one day" :-) (Toronto is a great city to visit and you can spend a lot of time just on it.)

The drive NF-Montreal will take most of the day by the time you add in stops etc. (7-8 hours driving in typical traffic is my guess, but others may have more accurate info). However it is certainly doable, particularly with 2 drivers so one doesnt get totally wiped out.

You are probably right in not trying to squeeze too many cities into the one trip - come back to Toronto later if you do some reading and it tickles your fancy.

So the modification to the itinerary above would be:

Day 1 NYC- Niagara Falls
Day 2 NF- Montreal (arrive afternoon/evening)
Day 3 - Montreal
Day 4 - Montreal - Quebec City (could spend some time still in Montreal in the morning)
Day 5 - Quebec City
Day 6 Quebec City - Lake George
Day 7 - Lake George- home

Have a great trip!

It's really hard to give travel advice to people you don't know, but what the heck...

Your 7-8 days is pretty tight, becasue a lot of time will be spent behind the wheel.

Options and thoughts...

Leave New York in the late afternoon of the day beforeyou really want to leve, and drive as far as, for instance, Albany or Syracuse. Driving into the eveing, you won't miss much in the way of scenery anyway.

This means you can get on the road early the next morning, far away from NYC, and three or four hours closer to Niagara Falls.

That would mean you could get to Niagara Falls in time to enjoy the falls and some of the other attractions of the city, and decide where to stay that night. Your choices are Niagra Falls itself, a little city where the falls actually are, or Niagara On The Lake, a small town half an hour away, with summer theatres, great restaurants, nice hotels, and some wineries. NontheL is right at the mouth of the Niagara River, on Lake Ontario.

The next day you can visit a winery in the morning, and drive to and through Toronto, and head towards Montreal.

Toronto is a great city, a favorite with travellers from around the world, but if you are genuine New Yorkers, you'll find it a lot likehome, and if time is tight, keep going.

Take the Queen Elizabeth Way (thruway style) from Niagara towards Toronto. As you pass the Ford Truck factory in Oakville keep left, which takes you to downtown Toronto on the QEW, (so do NOT take highway 403.

You'll drive along between Lake Ontario and downtown Toronto, see SkyDome and the CN Tower out the car window, get a quciik feel for the nature of downtown, and just keep going (unless it is lunch time) and follow the highway's curve up the Don Valley Parkway and this takes yuou to the estbound Highway 401, whcih takes you to Montreal. On this day, you can drive as far an Kingston, assuming Toronto does not distract you.

BAK

If you don't want to visit Toronto, maybe you should leave Niagara Falls for another trip. You're adding a lot of distance for just NF.

Instead, a 7-8 day trip will be great for Lake George, Ottawa, Montreal & Quebec City.

Thank you all for your great suggestions.

Leona,
I would skip Toronto and save it for another time. See the falls and then get to Montreal and then Quebec City. Quebec City deserves at least two days. It is the most unique and charming place in Canada...and it's pretty hard to find a bad meal there. Have fun.