Eastern Québec Highlights

Thirteen nights in a motorhome round the Gaspe peninsula, which is where the Appalachian chain runs out into the Gulf of St Lawrence and feels genuinely like the end of something.

Montreal opens it, and the route then works up the St Lawrence, which widens steadily until the far bank disappears and it behaves more like a sea than a river. The peninsula beyond is a landscape of glacial valleys, forest coming down to the shore, and villages strung along a single coast road, with seabird colonies on the cliffs and seals on the rocks below.

Gaspesie National Park inland is the centrepiece. More than twenty-five peaks rise above a thousand metres, which makes it the highest ground in Quebec, and it is the only place in the province where caribou, moose and white-tailed deer all live in the same mountains. The caribou herd on the Chic-Choc plateau is the last one south of the St Lawrence and is small and closely protected, so what a walker sees depends entirely on luck and on keeping to the trails.

This is a quieter and more demanding trip than the operator’s Rockies itineraries, with fewer organised attractions and more driving between places that have very little in them, which for the right traveller is the attraction rather than the drawback. Canadian Affair include the flights and the motorhome, with campground fees, fuel, insurance and meals separate. The price is per person, and at 1,412 pounds it is among the cheapest things they sell.