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A few weeks ago, my husband and I went on a road trip through southeastern Canada and the northeastern United States. We started our journey in Montreal and after spending almost two weeks in the provinces of Québec and New Brunswick, we crossed the border into the United States where we visited 4 of the 6 states that make up New England: Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Vermont, before we drove back north to Montreal.
We saw a lot of new places and even had a few new and exciting experiences along the way. In this post, I’m sharing my first impressions of our latest road trip.
New England and eastern Canada are not the most budget-friendly travel destinations.
This was something I noticed before we even left our home. As I was booking our accommodations online, I realised that the average cost per night was considerably higher than our previous U.S. holidays. Boston especially turned out to be a very expensive city.
I underestimated the time we would spend on the road.
This was not our first road trip. Three years ago, we visited the American Southwest and a year later we went back to that area (though a bit more east and a bit more north) and I planned our driving schedule with those two road trips in mind. However, we soon found out that driving in this part of North America is not the same as driving in the American Southwest. The time we spent in the car felt so much longer, even if we were driving the same distances.
The reason for this is probably that there’s just much more to see in the Southwest. The landscapes are more vast and diverse whereas now we were surrounded by trees most of the time. Though still beautiful (especially this time of the year), it isn’t exactly the most varied ride.
It rains a lot.
This may not always be the case but when we were there, we saw a lot of rain. Though this usually didn’t stop us from spending time outdoors (except when it was pouring), we did have to skip out on a couple of hikes because the fog would’ve made it impossible to enjoy the views.
The fall foliage is really nice.
And I mean REALLY nice! I knew it must’ve been something special since so many people flock to New England in the fall, but it was even better than I had imagined. There were so many different colours! The leaves ranged from green to yellow to orange to bright red. It was really impressive and I don’t even think we were there during peak foliage.
The cities are very charming.
Almost every blog I read prior to our vacation talked about how European the cities in this region are. This was especialy true for Québec City. Montreal and Boston felt more like your typical North-American city, though they certainly did have that European charm to them, especially in the older parts of the cities.
Québec French is different from European French.
I knew it was going to be different, but still… I always thought my French speaking skills weren’t all that bad, but at times it was really difficult to understand what the other person was saying. There was just something about the accent that made it sound so differently. Though we were able to understand most of the Quebecers we were talking to, informal conversations between locals were completely incomprehensible. We even met a girl from France who said she couldn’t understand two people who were talking to each other on the bus. It even took her a while to realise they were actually speaking French.
Tim Hortons is better than Starbucks.
This is my personal opinion of course. It was my first time in Canada and I had never been to a Tim Hortons before. My conclusion? I liked the coffee better than at Starbucks and it was also a lot cheaper. We even tried some of its food (Tim Hortons is apparently also a fast food joint, I didn’t know this) which tasted really good too.
There’s maple syrup everywhere.
Continuing on the food topic: if you’re into maple syrup, eastern Canada and New England is the place to be for you. They sell maple syrup everywhere! They even have maple syrup candy or taffy and maple syrup cookies. The most important locations for maple syrup production are the Québec province in Canada and the state of Vermont in the United States.
Halloween is a big deal in North America.
I already knew this, but this was the first time we were actually in North America in October and Halloween was omnipresent in every supermarket. They sold everything from costumes to scary decorations to candy, a lot of candy. There were giant bags filled with individually wrapped candy for trick-or-treaters, scary cupcake decorations, Halloween-themed pies and more. It was impossible not to know that Halloween was coming. We also spotted a few over-the-top decorated houses along the way.
Canada isn’t really that different from the United States.
This was my fourth visit to the United States, but my first time in Canada so I couldn’t help but compare the two North American countries and I realised they weren’t all that different. Apart from the French language and the use of kilometres instead of miles, we could’ve easily mistaken Canada for the U.S. (or the other way around). The Canadians have a reputation of being a very friendly people, but I find this is also the case in the U.S. If I had to name a difference, I’d say the Canadians are more polite. It’s a cliche, but one that seems to hold true.
A New England/eastern Canada road trip is a success even without a single light house.
Although the region is famous for its many beautiful lighthouses, we managed to visit… none. I had a couple of possible lighthouses written down in my roadbook, but in the end, we always felt like it was too far out of the way (as I said earlier, we already spent a lot of time in the car so we didn’t want to add to it too much). In Acadia National Park, we finally decided to visit the Bass Harbor Head Lighthouse. We arrived there at the end of the day but failed to realise that it was such a popular spot at sunset. We couldn’t find a parking spot anywhere near the lighthouse and we didn’t feel like walking a great distance after an already tiring hike earlier that day. So in the end, we didn’t visit a single lighthouse, but it didn’t make the road trip any less successful.
