Trip to Eastern Canada and Québec

Budget can vary enormously depending on your expectations, your wishes, availability, and above all, when you book.
It bears repeating: the earlier you book, the better the value. Airfares only increase as the departure date approaches. Forget any notion of last-minute deals if you’re planning a trip to Canada!

You can start booking as early as autumn for the following summer, and as early as spring for the following winter. The most interesting accommodations in terms of experience generally have small capacity and are also the most sought-after: gîte, chalet, pourvoirie (hunting and fishing lodge), ready-to-camp tent, tipi, yurt, treehouse, dome, sailboat, lighthouse…
The diversity of accommodation will make your trip to Canada a unique experience and allow you to vary the pleasures, but this will of course depend on the budget you wish to allocate to this trip. In high season, allow a minimum of €2,500 per person for a self-drive tour of about ten days with “classic” services in Ontario, Québec, Gaspésie or New Brunswick, for example.

If you’d like to include a few unusual experiences, the budget can quickly rise to €3,000–3,500 per person. With more luxurious services or more remote destinations (Newfoundland and Labrador, the Magdalen Islands, Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon, Anticosti Island), allow a minimum of €4,000 to €5,000 per person.

The length of your trip will of course depend on what you want to discover and how. Keep in mind that Canada is a vast country, with distances we’re not used to on a French scale.
The province of Québec alone is more than 3 times the size of France!
And what is considered Eastern Canada comprises no fewer than 6 provinces, each of a different size. The best way to explore this territory remains the self-drive tour, a journey by car undertaken at your own pace. Forget “hub-and-spoke” stays. Staying in Montreal for ten days and making day trips back and forth to explore the surroundings is a bad idea; you’ll waste a lot of time and miss out on the destination.

In North America, domestic flights are widely used to save time within an itinerary, and train travel is also a pleasant way to get around when you don’t want to drive. We don’t recommend crossing the Atlantic if you only have a week off, unless you’re planning a city break.
The minimum length for a memorable trip to Canada is about ten days. The ideal length ranges from 2 to 3 weeks to discover the highlights of 2 regions at most (Ontario and Québec, or Québec and Gaspésie, or Gaspésie and New Brunswick, etc.).

If you’d like to avoid driving overly long distances, don’t worry—you can also spend 2 or 3 full weeks in Québec alone (for example) and never be bored for a single moment! We’ll build and adjust your itinerary together based on your wishes and the time you can spend there.

Niagara Falls is among the most famous in the world and the most powerful falls in North America. If this spectacular natural phenomenon is sold as a must-see of Eastern Canada, it’s not without reason! The falls are impressive for their considerable flow rate, not their height. You’ll be deafened by the roar of water cascading over more than 50 metres and soaked by the spray flying dozens of metres around.

However, to avoid disappointment, know that Niagara Falls isn’t tucked away in the middle of nature but sits at the heart of the city of Niagara Falls. You don’t walk through a forest to reach it, but through parking lots. You won’t feel like you’re alone facing one of the natural wonders of the world, but rather like you’re at the foot of the Eiffel Tower in the middle of August. Numerous activities are on offer, and the whole area lives off tourism tied to the falls. The town of Niagara Falls resembles a slightly dated amusement park, a kind of mini Las Vegas with dozens of chain hotel towers, whose pricey rooms sometimes offer a view of the falls—for an extra fee.