Discover Prince Edward Island

Eight nights on Prince Edward Island, which is Canada’s smallest province and can be driven across in a couple of hours, so this is a trip about settling in rather than covering ground.

Charlottetown opens it, the provincial capital, with tree-lined streets, independent shops and waterfront restaurants. It is also where the Charlottetown Conference agreed the framework for Canadian confederation in 1864, which the town mentions fairly often.

The Green Gables Shore follows, rolling red farmland running down to the sea, and admission is included to Green Gables Heritage Place. The farmhouse there belonged to Lucy Maud Montgomery’s cousins and was the model for the setting of Anne of Green Gables in 1908, a book that has sold tens of millions of copies and brings a remarkable number of Japanese visitors to this particular field every year. The North Cape or Central Coastal Drive follows, with red and white sand beaches, lighthouses and Acadian villages, and the island’s potato fields in between, which account for a quarter of all Canadian production.

The distinctive part is the accommodation: two nights are spent inside a working lighthouse tower on the coast, which is a genuinely unusual thing to be able to book and the reason to choose this itinerary over a conventional hotel-based one. Canadian Affair include the flights, the hire car, the hotels, the lighthouse stay and the Green Gables admission, with fuel, insurance and meals separate. The price is per person. Oysters here are among the best in the world and cost very little at source, and the lobster season runs spring and autumn rather than through the summer, which catches some visitors out.