Canada's most scenic road trips
As a child growing up, my parents were both teachers, so there were long summer holidays and lots of road trips in Canada. We did both coasts one summer, and we usually heading to the east or west each year minimum. So I have clocked a lot of miles on the TransCanada. We haven’t replicated this degree of driving as adults, but have certainly done some of the highlights over again. While I don’t think Canada is as classic a road-trip country as the USA, we lack the volume of quaint towns and stops along the way, not to mention you’re time is far better spent off the road, but we certainly have some very scenic stretches of highway. Here are our favourites (from east to west):
Cabot trail: One of us grew up in Nova Scotia, so this cannot be absent from the list. It is classic east coast scenery, rolling hills, beautiful coastline of Cape Breton Island.
Route des Saveur, Charlevoix, north of the St Lawrence: we did the drive from Quebec City into Charlevoix while living in Montreal several times. There is lovely accommodations, amazing regional cuisine, charming towns, beautiful views down towards the river and it is not too far/long (a la Gaspesie). Nowhere else in Canada has a sense of terroir quite like this.
Icefields Parkway: Although the glaciers are visibly receded since I visited as a small child to our recent unsuccessful Mt Athabasca summit, this stretch of highway still packs some world class mountain scenery. You will undoubtedly find yourself pulling over to take photos several times. For those not venturing into the backcountry, this is the prettiest stretch of road in the Canadian Rockies.
Sea-to-sky: Its mountains may be a bit more pedestrian than the above overall, but the views out towards Tantalus range are still quite stunning, and it does have Howe sound, and further diverse landscapes if you travel all the way north to Lillooet. It is also more of a purists drivers trip, hugging the edge of the sound, as evidenced by the groups of Porche’s and motorcyslists you’ll see ripping past you. Although we have done this drive 100s of times, many times frustratingly stuck in traffic, arriving in Squamish with first light on the chief or heading home with a purple sky over howe sound still inspires.
Stewart Cassier highway: Huge stretches of Coastal Mountain glory for hours, along with the Cassiers, great canoeing and skiing trips to be had. We have yet to take the side trip in to Stewart, which is even more spectacular I have been told.
Dempster highway: We have only done the first bit of this drive, but even that was enough to make this list. There is a vastness to the space in the Yukon that you feel driving anywhere here. The legendary dempster highway, with distant mountains, fall colors and a rugged gravel road for hundreds of kilometers really personifies the north for us. If you are heading up here, best option is to rent a car in Whitehorse from driving force, if you get a SUV or truck they will generally let you drive on the dempster.
Honorable mentions: Gaspésie, north shore Lake Superior (see group of seven paintings); Eastern townships QC, anywhere in rural Ontario/QC during fall colors; Nanaimo to Tofino (if you can stand BC ferries); Powder highway (for the skiing); Rogers Pass; Winnipeg to Saskatoon/Calgary/Edmonton (if you have never been anywhere this flat before and what to get a sense of the scale of Canada); St John’s to Victoria (if you really want to get a sense of the scale of Canada) *note we will never be doing either of the last two again