Nova Scotia Self Drive Holiday

Sixteen nights in a loop around Nova Scotia, self-guided and tailor-made, from Halifax, taking in the Bay of Fundy and the Cabot Trail.

Nova Scotia is almost an island and the loop reflects it: nowhere on the route is more than an hour from the sea, and the coast changes character every day or two.

Halifax opens it, then Lunenburg, a UNESCO-listed shipbuilding town of painted timber houses, and Yarmouth, with stargazing from a wilderness lodge. Brier Island follows for the whale watching in the Bay of Fundy, which has the largest tidal range in the world, at up to sixteen metres, and twelve species of whale passing through it. Annapolis Royal and Wolfville come next in the wine country, then Pictou, and the Cabot Trail through Cape Breton Highlands National Park, which is the best known driving road in eastern Canada, with moose in the forest alongside it. Ingonish, Uisge Ban Falls, a catamaran and night kayak on the Bras d’Or, and the fishing villages of the eastern shore close the loop.

The itinerary is a tailor-made sample and the inclusions are not itemised in detail on the operator’s page, with the accommodation adjustable to budget; flights are not included. The price shown is per person excluding flights. June to October is the season, with the whales best in July and August and the Cabot Trail at its finest in the first half of October, when the hardwood turns. No wildlife sighting can be promised. Seventeen days for a province this size allows two nights in most places rather than one, which is the difference between touring and driving.