There's a version of Canada that doesn't make it onto most itineraries. It doesn't have a viral lake photo or a famous gondola. It doesn't get mentioned much on travel TikTok. But it has lobster you crack open yourself at a picnic table with the sea wind in your hair, roads so empty you can stop the car in the middle just to listen to the silence, and a sky so full of stars you'll question whether you've ever really looked up before.

I love the Rockies. But once you've done Banff, I want you to start thinking about the rest of this extraordinary country.

Atlantic Canada & Nova Scotia

Nova Scotia is one of the great undiscovered destinations for UK travellers, partly because it feels immediately familiar — Celtic music in pubs, fishing communities with deep roots, a landscape that occasionally makes you feel like you're back in the Scottish Highlands — and partly because it is completely, thrillingly itself. The Cabot Trail on Cape Breton Island is one of the world's great coastal drives: cliffs, whales, moose, and traditional fiddle sessions in tiny venues. Lunenburg is a UNESCO-listed harbour town painted in colours you won't believe until you see them. And the food — fresh lobster straight off the boats, chowder so thick you could stand a spoon in it, scallops the size of your fist — is reason enough to go on its own.

Prince Edward Island

PEI is Canada's smallest province and its most charming. Red sand beaches, impossibly green fields, and a pace of life that feels like someone turned the dial down to gentle. It's famous for Anne of Green Gables (an industry unto itself for families) and for producing some of the finest mussels and potatoes in North America. Charlottetown is small, walkable, and lovely. It pairs brilliantly with Nova Scotia for a two-week Atlantic circuit that most of your friends will never have done.

The Yukon

If you want to feel genuinely small — in the best possible way — go to the Yukon. This is wilderness on a scale that's hard to comprehend from a UK perspective. Whitehorse is the jumping off point for dog sledding, ice road adventures, and the very best northern lights viewing in North America (the aurora forecasting apps up here are almost eerily accurate). In summer, the midnight sun keeps the sky light at 2am and the landscape turns a green so vivid it barely looks real. This is bucket-list travel for people who mean it.

Canada beyond the Rockies is quieter, slower, and often more rewarding. If you've already done Banff and Whistler, it's time to go deeper. I'd love to help you plan it.

Curious about Atlantic Canada or the Yukon?

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