Canada's 150th birthday might be the best reason you'll ever have to stay close to home for your next vacation.
Sure, you could fly across the country to see mountains and oceans, but before you do, ask yourself: "Have I really seen southern Ontario yet?"
Enter the mighty road trip.
From Toronto, drive along the western shores of Lake Ontario, starting on Lake Shore Boulevard. Go through Long Branch, one of the city's last reasonably priced neighbourhoods – now as rare a find as the American eel in the waters of the 14th largest lake in the world – before heading to Highway 403 for one of Canada's most well considered city gates.
"The main bridge that you enter into the city once you leave Highway 403 on York Boulevard, Thomas McQuesten High-Level Bridge, was part of a grand, city-beautiful plan to create the northwest entrance to the city that visitors would see from Toronto," says Mark Osbaldeston, author of the recently published Unbuilt Hamilton, a history of Steeltown's architectural heritage.
"It is a nice entrance, you've got Cootes Paradise on one side, and Burlington Bay on the other, and you can see Dundurn Castle is on the left as you continue down York Boulevard."
Your southwestern Ontario road trip could include a riveting display of tall ships sailing past Pier 8 in Hamilton and, top, the magic of Canada Day fireworks.
Depending on when you take your trip this year, Hamilton will be offering up a whole host of sights to see and things to do to celebrate the sesquicentennial. On Canada Day weekend itself, 11 tall ships from across Canada and the U.S. and as far away as Friesland, the Netherlands (the oldest built in 1904 and the newest in 2000) will be sailing past and around Pier 8 on Hamilton's Waterfront. July 8 is Air Force Day at the Canadian Warplane Heritage War Museum up on Airport Road, where 60 planes, some current – like the Hercules transport plane, some vintage aircraft – like the Nieuport 11 on the Vimy Flight in 1916 – will be on display, presented by current members of the Royal Canadian Air Force. From July 10 to Aug. 16, you could pop down to the Cotton Factory on Sherman Avenue to see the Quit of Belonging, a 36-metre-long, 263-block quilted version of the history and culture of Canada. Hamilton is also where the HMCS Haida is docked, a Second World War and Korean conflict-era destroyer that hosts on-board tours and events throughout the summer.
A couple of scenic hours west on the 403 is Petrolia, home of North America's first commercial oil well, struck in 1858. Sometimes called Canada's Victorian Oil Town, it's also home to the Victoria Playhouse. Occupying the old Petrolia Town Hall, grandly built at the height of the town's oil boom in the 1880s, it's putting on Happy Together 1967, a jukebox musical celebrating the music as well as the movies and TV shows that were big during Canada's centennial year. It runs July 4-23 (and if you drive through a little later in the season, you can catch Portia, a biographical play about Canada's own Portia White, the nation's first popular black singer to gain worldwide fame, who died the year after the Centennial; it runs Aug. 15-27).
Hop on the 401 and head south till you almost bump into the States and you can end your trip in the Windsor-Essex area, known, among other things, as the birthplace of Canadian whisky.
You can try some of it out along Barrels, Bottles and Brews, the whis- key, wine, and beer trail where you can learn about the origins of Canadian whisky during the years of American prohibition while tasting small-batch brews, fermentations and distillations of various sorts, either in sample form or, if you choose to spend the night – maybe at The Grove in Kingsville – you can sample healthier-sized doses. If you're more into wine, you can concentrate on the EPIC wine tour, by bike or car, that will take you to as many as 18 wineries, trackable through stamps in your EPIC passport.
No Canadian trip in 2017, by road or otherwise, would be complete without a visit to a national park, entry to all of which are free this year. Windsor-Essex is home to two of them, the Fort Maiden National Historic Site, and Canada's southernmost point in Point Pelee National Park.
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