Canada is five time zones wide. You have a fortnight.
Which Niagara boat goes behind the water. What the Moraine Lake shuttle costs now private cars are banned from the road. Reviews of every tour you can book in Canada.
Moraine Lake, the Horseshoe, Old Quebec, a pod off the Salish Sea.
Four bookings a first Canadian trip gets built around, and what each one costs.
01The Rockies loopLake Louise, Moraine Lake, Banff Tour from Calgary/Canmore/BanffLake Louise, Moraine Lake and Banff town on one circuit out of Calgary or Canmore. The shuttle window decides the whole day.
02Behind the waterBest of Niagara Falls Canada Premium Tour: Behind Falls and BoatThe Canadian side, on the boat and then into the tunnels under the Horseshoe. Ponchos are handed out. Dry shoes are your problem.
03The old-town hourQuebec City Walking TourTwo hours through the walled upper town and down into Petit-Champlain. The cheapest thing on this page and nobody regrets it.
04The pod off VancouverCovered Whale Watching Adventure with Free PhotosA covered boat out into the Salish Sea for orca, humpbacks and sea lions. Cabin heat matters more than you expect in August.
Lake loop, icefield, or a full park day. Pick your Rocky Mountain morning.
Nearly every Banff and Jasper itinerary comes down to these three. What each kind of day costs to board, and which town it actually leaves from.
Six Canadian bases, and the day out each one is really for.
A harbour city with mountains at the end of the street, a mountain town with a gondola over it, the country’s biggest downtown an hour from the falls, a French river island, a walled town on a cliff, and a garden island reached by ferry.
Vancouver: mountains at one end of the street, ocean at the other.
Everything in Vancouver →
Ninety minutes takes you from a downtown hotel to a cedar canyon, a floatplane runway or a boat sitting in whale water. These three carry more travellers than anything else in the city.
Capilano, or the free bridge at Lynn
Capilano buys you the treewalk, the cliffwalk and a bus that collects you outside the hotel. Lynn Canyon has a smaller bridge, no ticket and a longer journey. Pay for it if the North Shore gets one day.
Whale watching, covered or open
Zodiacs put you closer to the water and take the weather straight on. The covered boats have heat, a toilet and a naturalist on the microphone. Sightings run to a season, and every operator says so up front.
A seaplane off Coal Harbour
Twenty minutes off the harbour water puts Stanley Park, the freighters and the whole North Shore in one frame. Take a morning slot before the afternoon wind gets up and the flights start sliding.
In Canada the big day usually finishes on a boat.
The Horseshoe from the deck below it, orca and humpbacks in the Salish Sea, a riverboat threading the Thousand Islands, a Maligne Lake crossing to Spirit Island. More of this country reads properly from the water than from the road.
Canada’s most popular days out.
Every Canadian tour reviewed here →The tours more travellers take than anything else in the country, and what earns each of them the slot.
1
Vancouver Half-Day Whale Watching Adventure with Free Photos
Sail from Granville Island aboard a 95-passenger catamaran with heated cabins, open decks, hot drinks, and naturalists such as Ashley and Petra. Watch for orcas, humpbacks, seals, sea lions, eagles, and seabirds, then receive free wildlife photos after the cruise. Allow about five hours.
From · $193
Read our review →
2
Quebec City Walking Tour
from $30
3
Premium Tour, Boat & Journey Behind the Falls
from $152
4
Banff Gondola Admission Ticket
from $53
5
Niagara Falls Day Tour with Optional Boat Cruise
from $53
6
Best of Niagara Falls Canada Premium Tour: Behind Falls and Boat
from $147
7
Guided Bus Tour
from $26
8
Big Bus Vancouver Hop-On Hop-Off Sightseeing Tour
from $48
Three things that only happen in Canada.
Mountains and coastline exist everywhere. A sky that turns green over a subarctic lake, a bus on six-foot tyres driving out onto a glacier, and a grizzly working a river bank do not.
The Yellowknife Aurora
Yellowknife sits under the auroral oval on the shore of Great Slave Lake, far enough north for the lights and dry enough for clear nights. The season runs from late August, when darkness comes back, through to April. Tours drive out past the city glow to heated teepees and wait, because the sky keeps its own timetable and nobody sells a guarantee.
- 1Aurora Hunting Tours★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 374 reviews
- 2Northern Lights Tour Yellowknife★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 370 reviews
- 3Northern Lights Tours★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 326 reviews
The Athabasca Ice Explorer
The Columbia Icefield spills six glaciers over the Continental Divide, and one of them has a road onto it. Ice Explorers with six-foot tyres grind down a lateral moraine at eighteen degrees and park on the Athabasca so you can stand on it and drink the meltwater. The vehicles run roughly May to October, and the ice has pulled back a long way since the first ones.
- 1Columbia Icefield Skywalk and Ice Explorer Ticket★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 2,444 reviews
- 2Columbia Icefield Tour with Glacier Skywalk★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 1,860 reviews
- 3Columbia Icefield Skywalk★★★★★★★★★★ 4.3 · 916 reviews
Bears, Elk and Bighorn
The Bow Valley Parkway and the Icefields Parkway are wildlife corridors with a speed limit through them. Grizzlies work the berry slopes in late summer, elk hold the meadows around Banff town in the autumn rut, and bighorn stand in the middle of the tarmac near the icefield with no interest in moving. Guided vehicles get you closer legally, which is the entire point.
- 1Victoria Whale and Wildlife Cruise★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,729 reviews
- 2Jasper Evening Wildlife Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 710 reviews
- 3Jasper National Park: Evening or Morning Wildlife Watch Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 691 reviews
What a day out in Canada actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by what it costs. A good number of the best Canadian days come in under the price of dinner.
Old-town walks, tower tickets, harbour cruises and the short runs out of the ferry terminals.
- 1Quebec City Walking Tourfrom $30
- 2Guided Bus Tourfrom $26
- 3Big Bus Vancouver Hop-On Hop-Off Sightseeing Tourfrom $48
The full-day standards: Niagara from Toronto, the Lake Louise circuit, whale watching and the gondolas.
Icefield-and-Skywalk combinations, floatplanes, helicopter days and private guides.
Four Canadian bookings that will not wait.
Most of this country can be sorted over breakfast. These four run on shuttle permits, migration windows and daylight that disappears at four in the afternoon.
- 01Lake Louise, Moraine Lake, Banff Tour from Calgary/Canmore/BanffPrivate vehicles are barred from the Moraine Lake road. A shuttle seat or a tour is the only way up, and the summer slots go months out.
- 02Columbia Icefield Skywalk and Ice Explorer TicketThe Ice Explorers run roughly May to October and the last departure is early. Outside the season the road ends at a locked gate.
- 03Aurora Hunting ToursYellowknife works from late August to April, when the nights are long enough. In midsummer there is no darkness to see it in.
- 04Vancouver Half-Day Whale Watching Adventure with Free PhotosThe pods are in the Salish Sea and the St Lawrence for a season, not a year. Book inside it or the boat is only a boat.
Canadian wildlife keeps its own calendar.
Orca and humpbacks off Vancouver Island through the summer, belugas and blues in the St Lawrence off Tadoussac, black bears on the Bow Valley Parkway at dusk, bighorn standing in the road near the icefield. Turning up in the right month matters more than the operator.
Every wildlife trip →
What Canada does once the lakes freeze over.
From November the boats stop and the country swaps activity entirely. Sled dogs on a frozen river out of Whitehorse, snowmobiles above Whistler, an ice walk through a canyon that was a summer footpath, and the aurora season opening across the north.
By place — coast, Rockies, river and the north
By kind of day — water, mountain, table or road
Vancouver, Banff, Toronto, Niagara, Montreal, Quebec City: the run almost everybody does first.
Whistler
Niagara FallsThe newest Canadian tour reviews.
The rest of the new ones →
Moraine Lake Lake Louise Johnston Canyon Emerald Lake Day tour
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Along Icefields Parkway: Peyto Lake, Bow Lake & Columbia Icefield
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Lake Minnewanka, Peyto Lake, Bow Lake , Icefields
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3 Day Algonquin Park Canoe Trip – Moose & Beaver Safari
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Moraine Lake and Lake Louise Sightseeing Half Day Tour
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Discover the Lake Agnes Tea House Trail with an Audio Nature Tour
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Official SkiByk Rentals in Banff & The Canadian Rockies
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Smartphone Audio Driving Tour between Lake Louise and Calgary
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