When I tell people I went on a Contiki trip across Canada in the summer of 2022, non-Canadians seem confused. “Aren’t you Canadian? Why would you take a Contiki in your own country?”

Because Canada is HUGE, my dude.

I’ve lived here my whole life, and haven’t seen so much of this beautiful country. The Grand Canadian Contiki tour (now called the Ultimate Canada) would visit locations I’ve seen before, sure. But it would give me a new perspective on them. And it would also take me to jaw-dropping, brand new places.

The first half of this 3-week trip would show us the “East” Coast (not the Maritimes, but Ottawa, Montreal, Quebec, Niagara Falls and Toronto), and the second half would take us across to the West Coast, where we would get to explore brand new territory for me – Whistler, Jasper, Banff, and end in Vancouver.

*Tour map for our Canadian Contiki tour (July 2022)*

Contiki is a travel company for young adults aged 18-35 who want to travel. I did a Contiki around Europe just before the pandemic hit, and it was one of the best experiences of my life. I was pushed to meet new people, try new things, experience new cultures – I would recommend it to anyone.

I decided doing one of these trips around Canada would be a safer way to ease back into solo travel after the world started to re-open the borders again.

I would never be too far from home, or outside the Canadian border. If anything started to shut down, I’d be able to get home.

All that to say, in early July 2022, I found myself at a hotel downtown Toronto to meet the group and get this Canadian road trip started!

About 40 people piled onto the bus and before we knew it, we were getting ourselves oriented by our travel manager, Charlotte, as our driver started the journey to Ottawa.

Once we arrived in the Canadian capital, Charlotte gave us an orientation tour around the neighbourhood. These quick walking tours were great for getting our bearings in a new city before being left to our devices with 39 new strangers.

I was so thankful to have made a new friend on the bus ride! Did 30-year-old me expect to be making besties with a girl from a small German town? Not at all.

But it was so much fun to get to show this new friend my home country (even though it was pretty new for me, too).

*Me and my new friend with the Ottawa sign (July 2022)*

After a little walk around, we got to our first hotel to drop our bags and meet our roommates. I was so thankful to be paired with Janine, another person on the older end of the 18-35 age limit. She was from the UK, currently living in… Newfoundland! Another (sort of) Canadian!

We got dropped back off in the heart of Ottawa, and were given free time for the evening.

I wandered with my new German friend until we found a cute local grocery store. So we grabbed some bread and meat and cheese, and had ourselves a little picnic in the park.

*Dinner picnics in the park (July 2022)*

Once the sun went down, Charlotte had suggested we could make our way to Parliament Hill to watch a light show that gets projected onto the building.

It was so neat to see everyone gathered around the Parliament building in our nation’s capital to watch a projection show about the country.