Great Parks of the East

Fourteen nights by hire car in a circle through Ontario and into Quebec, and the emphasis is inland rather than coastal, which is unusual and makes this a quieter trip than the Niagara circuit.

Toronto opens it, then Huron country by way of Penetanguishene, an old settlement on Georgian Bay where French, Indigenous and British histories overlap and the place names still show it.

Muskoka follows, a lake district of some sixteen hundred freshwater lakes and smooth granite outcrops that has been the summer retreat of choice for wealthy Torontonians since the nineteenth century, with the boathouses to prove it. Algonquin Provincial Park is beyond it, over a century old and the oldest provincial park in the province, where the interior is reachable only by canoe and moose, black bear and loon are all common.

The Huntsville area provides the base for boat cruises and walking, then the route continues to Ottawa, the national capital, with its museums and the Rideau Canal, and finishes in the quieter countryside of Quebec. Canadian Affair include the flights, the hire car and the hotels, with fuel, insurance and meals separate. The price is per person, and at 2,099 pounds for fourteen nights including flights it is among the better value fly-drives they sell. Autumn is the season to aim for, when the hardwood across Muskoka and Algonquin turns and the lakes go still enough to mirror it. Algonquin is also one of the best places in North America to hear wolves, since the park runs public howl events in late summer when the packs are vocal, though whether they answer on any given night is their decision.