Two mountain ranges, three coastlines, and one very loud waterfall.
Which Banff day trip actually stops at Moraine Lake. What the boat under Niagara costs. Whether Tadoussac beats Vancouver Island for whales. Reviews of every tour you can book in Canada.
The gondola, the falls, the whale boat, the walled town.
Four bookings a first Canadian trip tends to hang off. What each one costs, and what the people who took it say.
01Morning oneBanff Gondola Admission TicketEight minutes up Sulphur Mountain, then a boardwalk along the ridge with the whole Bow Valley underneath.
02The loud onePremium Tour, Boat & Journey Behind the FallsThe boat into the spray plus the tunnels that open behind the sheet of water. Take the first sailing of the day.
03The whale dayTadoussac/Charlevoix: 3-Hour Whale Watching Boat TourZodiacs out of Tadoussac where the Saguenay meets the St Lawrence. Belugas live there; the big ones come through in summer.
04Behind the rampartsQuebec City Walking TourUpper town, lower town and the funicular between them. Quebec City keeps the only city walls left north of Mexico.
Whale boat, falls boat, or a raft through a canyon. Pick a hull.
More of Canada reaches you by water than by road. Three kinds of day afloat, what it costs to board each one, and which coast it runs on.
★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · Vancouver Half-Day Whale Watching Adventure with Free Photos
Whale boatsOrcas off Vancouver Island, belugas at the mouth of the Saguenay.
Every hullFalls sailings, harbour cruises, lake runs and island crossings.
WhitewaterKicking Horse, Athabasca and the Elaho, from a float to grade four.
Paddle daysBig canoes on the Banff lakes, sea kayaks off the Sunshine Coast.
Every hull we have been out on →
Banff and Jasper sit one road apart. Most people book only half of it.
Lake Louise and Moraine fill their car parks by seven, so the tours leave earlier than you want them to. North of Lake Louise the Icefields Parkway runs three hours to a glacier you can stand on, and a gondola at either end does the climbing for you.
Six Canadian bases, and the day out that earns each one.
A mountain town at the end of the Bow Valley, a rainforest city with floatplanes on the harbour, a cataract you can stand behind, a walled town on a cliff, a French city with a mountain in the middle, and the tower that started the skyline race.
Niagara is water you can get under, behind and above in one afternoon.
The Canadian bank owns the view of the horseshoe, which is why almost every tour crosses to it. A boat runs into the basin, tunnels open behind the sheet, and a tower deck puts the whole drop in one frame. Ninety minutes from Toronto, and most people book it from there.
The days out more travellers in Canada book than any other.
Every Canadian tour we have reviewed →These carry more people than anything else in the country, and each one earns the slot for a different reason.
1
Vancouver Half-Day Whale Watching Adventure with Free Photos
Set out from Granville Island on a 95-passenger catamaran with heated cabins, open decks, hot drinks, and naturalist guides. Watch for orcas, humpbacks, seals, sea lions, eagles, and seabirds while guides explain local wildlife, geology, and history. Free wildlife photos arrive by email, so you can watch instead of handling your camera.
From · $193
The full write-up →
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
Toronto: 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
Montreal: Guided Bus Tour
from $26
8
Big Bus Vancouver Hop-On Hop-Off Sightseeing Tour
from $48
9
Québec City: Guided Sightseeing River Cruise
from $47
Quebec City and Montreal do not feel like the rest of the country.
Stone ramparts, a funicular down to the river, a basilica along the coast road and a waterfall taller than Niagara. An hour upriver Montreal swaps the walls for bagels, brunch cruises and a mountain sitting in the middle of town.
Every Quebec day out →
What a Canadian day out actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by what you pay. A good number of the best Canadian days come in under the price of dinner.
City walks, gallery and tower tickets, gondola rides and the short runs out of the ferry terminals.
- 1Quebec City Walking Tourfrom $30
- 2Montreal: Guided Bus Tourfrom $26
- 3Big Bus Vancouver Hop-On Hop-Off Sightseeing Tourfrom $48
The full-day standards: Lake Louise and Moraine, the falls with a boat, whale boats and the Icefields Parkway.
Floatplanes, helicopters, private guides and the once-a-trip splurges that earn it.
Three things that happen nowhere further south.
Mountains and old towns exist everywhere. A sky that turns green, a glacier you walk onto in cleats, and a canyon climbed in winter on steel catwalks do not.
The Aurora at Yellowknife
Yellowknife sits almost directly under the auroral oval, which is why the odds here beat anywhere else you can fly to for a night. The season needs darkness, so it runs roughly mid-August to April. Tours leave town after dinner for a heated cabin or a lakeshore away from the streetlights, and three nights out gives you a working chance of one good sky.
- 1Aurora Hunting Tours★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 374 reviews
- 2Northern Lights Tour Yellowknife★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 370 reviews
- 3Northern Lights Tours★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 326 reviews
The Columbia Icefield
The Athabasca Glacier is the front toe of an icefield that drains into three oceans, and the Parkway runs straight to it. Ice Explorers with six-foot tyres drive out onto the surface; guided walks put you on the same ice in crampons on a rope. Both stop when the snow closes the approach, usually from the middle of October.
- 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
Johnston Canyon in Winter
Steel catwalks bolted into the limestone carry you up a slot canyon to two waterfalls. In July it is a busy hour with a queue at the lower falls. From December the water freezes into blue columns, the crowd thins right out, and the guide hands you ice cleats at the trailhead before you start.
- 1Emerald Lake, Moraine, Louise, Johnston Canyon & Banff Town★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 1,554 reviews
- 2Lakes Moraine, Louise, Emerald, Johnston Canyon & Yoho Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 1,023 reviews
- 3Johnston Canyon Icewalk★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 502 reviews
Four things you cannot leave until you land.
Most of this country can be sorted from a bar stool the night before. These four run on snow lines, ferry timetables and a season that closes without asking when your flight lands.
- 01Columbia Icefield Skywalk and Ice Explorer TicketThe Ice Explorers run from about the middle of April to the middle of October. Outside that window the Parkway is open and the glacier tour is not.
- 02Northern Lights Tour YellowknifeAurora season needs dark nights, so it stops around late April and starts again in August. Cabins fill first whenever the forecast turns clear.
- 03Victoria & Butchart Gardens Tour with Ferry from VancouverThe Victoria day trips run on a ferry timetable and the gardens shut before the last sailing back. Miss the booked crossing and the whole day goes with it.
- 04Vancouver Half-Day Whale Watching Adventure with Free PhotosWhale boats are weather-called and seasonal on both coasts. Leave the spare day at the end of your trip rather than the start.
Rain on the coast, minus twenty inland. Canada has an indoor answer.
Vancouver spends its winter under drizzle and Montreal spends it under a real freeze, and neither one cancels a good day. Tasting rooms and market halls, a gallery with the whole country in it, a tower deck above the weather, and a table that takes three hours on purpose.
By place, west coast to east
Vancouver to Quebec City: the run most first Canadian trips are built from.
WhistlerJust-published Canadian reviews.
The ones that landed after these →
All Inclusive Best Tour Ever Niagara Falls Canada Tour
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Amazing Scavenger Hunt: Hunt Along Niagara Falls
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A Twilight Wine Adventure with 3-Course Dinner
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Afternoon Wine, Beer and Charcuterie Tour in Niagara-on-the-Lake
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8 Hour Ontario Wine Tour with Cheese and Charcuterie
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Private Wine Tour in Niagara-on-the-Lake w/ cheese & charcuterie
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Astounding Scavenger Hunt: Moncton Canada’s Cultural Hub
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