Hi Canadians, I am giving up on web search and rely again on actual people.
I want to go to Canada in Summer for about 5-6 weeks. I already asked a travel agency for a quote for renting a RV, but thats STUPID expensive. I used to go couchsurfing. the website is no more (i think), i am registered on BeWelcome now but haven’t looked into it.
What’s the best ways for someone with little money to still travel most of the country? renting a car there? buying one and selling it later? RVs? couchsurfing (and how)? hostels? camping?
I am grateful for all hints and tipps and connections :)
edit after some comments: I’m from Germany. My budget is not high. I think I can maybe push it to 4000$, but that’d be pretty high for me.
Used to be able to get an open rail ticket, looks like that’s not a thing anymore? I did find this, but I’m not awake enough to figure out how good a deal it is. Rail is definitely one of the more memorable ways to cross Canada. Can get a trip from Toronto to Vancouver for $1300+ with stops in Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Edmonton, Jasper and Kamloops. That’s only a 5 day trip, so you’d have to figure something out for the other weeks.
Railpass is something i didn’t know about, so thank you so much for the suggestion. The price is stupid expensive, but maybe there’s some catch or discount i can find.
Hope you’re able to get something worked out, there’s a lot of really beautiful bits of Canada. Have a great time, and be safe!
Looking at some of the comments above, I’ll just add my 2 cents. The $900/week for a car must be with chauffeur and champagne because a quick Expedia search confirms that $350/week with unlimited mileage seems fair. And rail outside of the Toronto - Montreal corridor is a waste I think. Especially as they now charge you as though you are flying, with baggage fees and weight limits.
The other comment that noted staying in BC and Alberta for 5-6 weeks makes good sense. You could rent a car in the where you fly in and out of, and just travel cheap from there. Bring a tent and you’ll find lots of camping areas in both provinces. And along with Jasper and Banff, make sure you hit Drumheller and the Royal Tyrell Paleontology museum, one of best in the world!
If you want more cities, then just focus on the Toronto to Quebec city corridor. Lots of beautiful sights and places to see.
hey thanks for weighing in. 350$ a week for a car does seem reasonable, depending on the car. but could i maybe buy one for that price? (6 weeks makes that around 2000$)
what is it about Saskatchewan and Manitoba that makes them “forgetable”? i’d like to see Montréal and Toronto and Vancouver. But is there nothing in the “between-states” worth visiting?
It’s very flat, very prairie, and very samey. I remember driving from Saskatoon, SK to Prince George, BC once and somewhere between Saskatoon and Calgary started to get a bit weirded out because I swear we passed the same fence gate every 15 minutes for 5 hours.
sounds kinda interesting as I’ve not seen this kind of landscape in my life
Given 5-6 weeks, I’d probably stick to just Alberta and BC and you’ll probably enjoy your time a lot more and be way more relaxed not having to rush from one place to the next.
Alberta has Banff and Jasper national parks, which are great and will keep you occupied if you like nature. BC has Whistler and Squamish relatively close to Vancouver, which gives you a base to work from. Vancouver itself is a great city as well.
I don’t know where you’re from, but Canada is a huge country. Our land border with the USA is over 8000km. That’s a lot of ground to cover.
i just clicked on Banff and the picture made me go “oh my god WTF” out loud. i’ll consider the area. I’m from Germany, so 8000km is a distance that I cannot fathom. like 10 different countries in a line xD
Banff national park is where you’ll find Lake Louise and Moraine lake (of reddit fame) with some fantastic hikes like the Plain of six glaciers.
It’s definitely worth a visit. Though if you choose to go there, be aware that it’s a heavily touristy area (for very good reason) and very difficult to avoid crowds, especially in the summer.
thanks for the heads-up :)
German? Oh yeah, spend almost all your time in BC. Germans love it here. Seriously, I think it’s mostly the forests and the mountains. I’d fly into Vancouver, drive the #3 highway to Creston, Creston to Banff, Banff to Jasper, Jasper to Quesnel, detour to Barkerville, backtrack to Quesnel, then Quesnel, Lillooet, Pemberton, Whistler, Squamish, Horseshoe Bay. Ferry to Nanaimo then Tofino (or Port Hardy if you want wilder). Then back to Vancouver via Nanaimo or Victoria.
I grew up here, and there are numerous natural places to explore along that route that take my breath away.
wow that’s a specific route. i’ll look it up thank you so much. I’m not sure I want to go where “germans love it” to be fair. As all germans on holiday i’d love to avoid other germans if at all possible xD
Dude, it’s so big you won’t even see each other. The only way I found out is because I worked in Barkerville. Even then, Germans were the minority of visitors, just the most common international tourists. Barkerville is a gold rush ghost town, and I believe a German novelist wrote a series about it.
I mention Germans loving it because culturally it seems you appreciate nature, and you will see some spectacular nature here.
Just be conscious that if you go off trail you could walk for WEEKS without finding another road. Tourists sometimes get lost forever because they just don’t trust how vast and empty the wilderness is here.
When you’re in Tofino, hire a water taxi to take you to Meares Island. You will see some of the most massive and gnarly redcedars. It’s incredible.
EDIT: it is a specific route, definitely. After years of traveling BC and living here, I’ve given you a route manageable in 3 weeks that is journey oriented more than destination oriented. On that route you will go through an amazing diversity of landscapes and see some of the best of the ocean, the coast mountains, cowboy country, and the Rockies. When a lot of locals don’t really know about the Lillooet/Pemberton route because they’re trying to bee line in for Vancouver. It’s fucking stunning + no commercial traffic.
thank you for even more recommendations and explanations. what’s the best way to start this route? i need to fly in to a big airport
Fly into Vancouver airport (YVR), rent a car at the airport, and start driving East.
What’s your total budget roughly? What do you want to see? More cities, more nature, more mountains, more plains, more tundra, more rivers and lakes, more oceans?
On average my short-term travelling escapades average out to $200-250 Canadian a night, but that includes local souvenirs, a nice meal, round-trip travel fare, metro transit tickets, hostel or hotel and I’m budget conscious but not trying to stretch every dollar to the limit.
The cheapest way to cover long distances is by air, but you will miss all the country there is to see between and there are limits to the stuff you can bring in your luggage (no camping stoves, etc.). It’s also the only way you can get to many places in the Arctic (such as Nunavut).
Rail is a beautiful way to travel the country, without the stress and costs of driving, but you are at the mercy of freight rail traffic so the schedules of The Canadian or The Ocean trains basically mean nothing. You can mostly get away with public transport if you are staying within the Greater Toronto-Hamilton Area, île Montréal, Metro Vancouver. These largest cities also have decent commuter bicycle rental programmes for small, inexpensive trips.
The intercity bus can take you some places but it’s not too comfortable and there are huge gaps within Canada so it’s not reliable for everything.
The car’s cost is depending on how much hassle you want to have. Rental agencies based on my very brief search seemed to cost $900/week plus gas (estimate 10c/km). I’m a member of a carshare co-op (with $500 refundable buy-in) and the rates for me are $100/day for 500km and $0.35/km above that, gas included. Buying and selling a car I have no idea how expensive that would be, but it would be quite a bit of paperwork for buying selling and getting insurance, and finding a good car to travel around with then finding a buyer later seems like a lot of hassle. Maybe app-based car sales might make things easier but IDK. Parking it in the cities is another hassle and expense.
If you can get a car cheaply and you love nature: get a tent, food and camping supplies and spend time in Canada’s many national and provincial parks. Many of them are beautiful, and when it comes to cost they are rather cheap places to stay with most campsites having toilets and showers, which you can base yourself at then explore the woods. The popular ones may get booked out for the summer, and especially around Canada Day (1st of July), so be aware.
thank you for all the consideration you put into this. I don’t think we travel in similar ways. when I was in Japan, i think i spent around 2000€ for 4 weeks traveling, which I guess is impossible in 2025. I’d love my budget to be around that number, but i’m willing to maybe double it. but then everything would need to be in there.
What I want to see is anything and everything xD i already heard about the trains being unreliable and weird (weight limits and such). I don’t know how it is with buying and selling cars, too. so maybe you’re right and it is too much beaurocratic hassel.
