North America
Mountains, ocean and wilderness, wrapped around laid-back cities.
Canada is a country of jaw-dropping wilderness on a continental scale — the Rockies, endless forests and lakes, polar bears and whales — with a handful of relaxed, multicultural, supremely liveable cities. Vancouver is the west-coast gem: a glass-towered city cradled between the Pacific and the Coast Mountains, where you can ski and sail in the same day, cycle a seawall past totem poles, and eat some of the best Asian food outside Asia. Outdoorsy, easygoing and ringed by staggering nature.
What things cost: Canada is expensive — Vancouver especially, with high accommodation costs, plus taxes and tipping (15–20%) added on top. Nature is the payoff, and much of it is free or cheap; the seawall, the beaches and the parks cost nothing. When a zone below says 'low', that means low for Vancouver, which is dear.
Sometimes the event picks the city for you.
A beloved, long-running festival of folk and world music on the grass at Jericho Beach Park, with the mountains and sea as a backdrop — a mellow, family-friendly weekend of music, crafts and food in a glorious summer setting. A quintessentially laid-back Vancouver event.
Vancouver · Jericho Beach Park
The world's largest offshore fireworks competition — over three summer nights, countries put on dazzling fireworks displays choreographed to music over English Bay, watched by hundreds of thousands from the beaches and seawall. A spectacular, free highlight of the Vancouver summer; stake out a beach spot early.
Vancouver · English Bay
North America's largest Caribbean festival — a huge, joyous carnival of dazzling feathered costumes, steel-pan and soca music, and a spectacular Grand Parade of a million revellers along the lakeshore. A riot of colour, rhythm and Caribbean food that takes over the city for a weekend; one of the great summer celebrations of Toronto's multicultural soul.
Toronto · Exhibition Place & the lakeshore
A beloved end-of-summer institution — the Canadian National Exhibition, an enormous 18-day fair of rides, games, an air show, live music, agricultural displays and gloriously outrageous fair food (deep-fried everything). Nostalgic, family-friendly and quintessentially Toronto, marking the last hurrah of summer down by the lakeshore; a fun, cheap-thrills day out for all ages.
Toronto · Exhibition Place
One of the world's most important film festivals, and the launchpad for the Oscar season — ten days of premieres, red carpets and A-list stars descending on downtown Toronto, with public screenings anyone can attend. The city buzzes with celebrity-spotting and cinema; book popular screenings ahead, and enjoy the electric atmosphere in the entertainment district.
Toronto · Downtown Toronto
One of the largest film festivals in North America — ten days of hundreds of films from around the world, with a strong focus on Canadian and Asian cinema, across the city's downtown cinemas. A cultured reason to visit in the crisp early autumn, as the summer crowds thin.
Vancouver · Downtown cinemas
