Let me just start by saying that a single night in Ottawa was definitely not nearly enough to get a feel for the city. That night in the Canadian Parliament was memorable, but it was only scratching the surface of what we could’ve done if we had more time. I definitely need to come back here at some point and check out the rest of Ottawa’s travel portfolio, but we were short on time for the trip and would now be heading on the longest car ride of all of CANEDA to our next location, the famous city of Toronto. Out of all the locations from the past few days, this was the one I probably knew the least about. I really had no clue what to expect.
Spoiler Alert: Toronto was by far the largest and grandest of all the cities. Montreal and Boston were both very impressive, but they were just warm-ups compared to the urban monstrosity that we were about to see.
The day started off really slowly thanks to Casey and I being too lazy to leave our beds. Our family woke up, packed up all our things, and left the hotel at around 11. We didn’t eat breakfast, so we went on a quick shopping excursion in a different part of Ottawa to get some brunch and find some additional souvenirs. We ended up buying a few bottles of Maple Syrup as gifts for our friends back at home and getting the very unoriginal meal choice of Taco Bell.
Up until around midday, not much really happened, but the road trip that followed from Ottawa to Toronto made the whole day far more interesting. Just like our car ride from Boston to Montreal, the trip took around four or five hours to reach our destination. Nobody wanted to sit in a car for such a long time, obviously, so everyone started thinking of stops along the way that would make the ride more interesting.
In the end, what we came up with was a single stop near the city of Kingston. This would lead us to one of the most iconic historic sites that we visited in the entire trip, and although it didn’t turn out to be as fancy as the Basilica in Montreal or as well-known as the… (cough cough spoiler alert) Niagara Falls, the extra hour of driving was definitely rewarded.
First, though, we had a bit of a long drive ahead of us. The journey from the Canadian Capital of Ottawa southwest to Kingston was expected to take about two or three hours. We ended up leaving for our drive down to Toronto at around 1:00 PM, which was incredibly late; even more so than when we drove to Montreal. The key difference this time, however, was that Casey and I spent a lot more time watching the view out the window rather than making frequent stops, which let us reach our destination with decent time.
To be honest, the scenery outside of the car of en route to Kingston was fairly unremarkable. The terrain, for the most part, was pretty flat, and honestly didn’t feel too different from what we had seen while driving through the forests of New England just four days ago.
There was a brief highlight, however, in which our car passed right by the US border with Canada. The highway we took passed within a mile of the state of New York, meaning we could briefly see the US from across the river separating the two countries. We never crossed over the border, and there wasn’t anything too interesting on the other side, but I thought it was worth noting.
Besides that, the mood in the car throughout the ride down to Kingston was pretty quiet. Our grandparents sat in the back of the car and spent most of their time fast asleep (I don’t know how they sleep this much) as Casey remained focused on Geometry Dash. I spent a good chunk of my time taking pictures of the passing countryside.
Rating for Experience #34, Ottawa to Kingston Car Ride, C+
At around 3:15 PM, we arrived at our only stop between Toronto and Ottawa: a historic site called Fort Henry, which was pretty important in the War of 1812 between America and Canada (Well, Canada when it was still under British rule). Upon searching it up, I found that the story behind the fort mostly centered around defense against American attacks. It was also used as a prison several times, holding captives from the Canadian Rebellions in the 1830s and the World Wars that would follow several decades later.
The lore behind Fort Henry pretty quickly established itself as one of the most complex we’d seen on the trip so far. As our car pulled into the parking lot of Fort Henry, I was mildly surprised to see a British Flag waving proudly over the land instead of a Canadian one; I guess I expected them to have changed it once Canada gained its independence, but it seems like that wasn’t the case.
Another surprise was that the fort ended up looking a lot larger and wider than I expected.
(You might not be able to see the British Flag in this picture, but trust me, it IS there.)
The parking lot was on the opposite side of the entrance of the fort, so we had to walk quite a bit to be able to see the fort’s interior. Just walking up the path on the side of the fort was an attraction on its own: I got a pretty decent view of the city of Kingston, which was just across what is called the Navy Bay. I quickly took the opportunity to get a picture:
The building itself looked pretty old, but really well-preserved, as if it hadn’t aged with time, or as if two hundred years hadn’t passed since this thing was first built. The tickets inside weren’t too expensive; our family almost considered turning back when we got there because of how late it was getting, but we decided we’d give it a quick visit before heading back on the road.
The fee was worth it; scattered across Fort Henry were all of these little historical artifacts sprinkled within its premises, and Casey and I quickly began running around, trying to see what other relics of the past Fort Henry had to offer. Cannons overlooked the entrance to Lake Ontario as if the United States Navy might come back again any minute now. This picture of the cannon overlooking the bay made it really easy for me to imagine a battle from the War of 1812 being fought here in my head:
All across the entire fort’s interior– if you’re curious, it looks like this:
There were so many things scattered across the fort that brought it to life- there were all these interactive “mini-attractions” that I definitely would’ve taken a closer look at if I had the time available to do so. There were a lot of really cozy restaurants on all sides as well as these smaller museums, each containing its own stories about the old times for Fort Henry. One of the most interesting immersion experiences that Fort Henry offers for the kids is this thing where they all dress up in redcoat attire and pose with these rifle props and run around the fort’s interior, doing pretend bayonet charges as they did.
There were also these parades of redcoats around the fort that caught a lot of attention from anyone visiting in the area, which also piqued my interest. Obviously, these are just some trained 21-year-olds who were taught how to march in a line, but seeing this in person definitely felt a lot more intimidating than you might imagine; they looked like they could have been actual soldiers in a war. They knew how to line up in formation, pose and stand up as straight as a line, and they even fired rifles a few times, much to the awe of the crowd (not AT the crowd. In case that wasn’t clear.)
Let me just take a moment to emphasize how incredibly loud these rifles are; you’ve definitely imagined in your head before that a fired rifle would end up producing a “BANG!” sound. But it doesn’t really emphasize how loud a rifle— it’s one of those things that you can’t really understand until you’ve actually heard it yourself. If you’ve never seen a rifle getting fired, you’ve never seen loud noises.
The sound of just one firing off into the distance was one of the most overwhelmingly loud noises I’d ever experienced, possibly the loudest thing I’ve ever heard in my life. The whole thing just explodes through the ears and into the body (like a bullet)— and if you’re sensitive to sound (like I am), definitely keep in mind that they will fire rifles here because if you’re not expecting this the force of the rifle is pretty disorienting.
When the redcoats weren’t in the middle of their fancy show, Casey and I spent our time exploring all of the fort’s different rooms. They definitely aren’t perfect, but they looked really old-fashioned and definitely capture that old-time British Colony feeling that the place seemed to be aiming for.
We also found this plaque on the walls of the fort listing out the British Infantry units that were stationed at Fort Henry, as well as parts of the Canadian Army that also served here throughout the 1800s. There was even a plaque dedicated to the internment camps that Canada created during the World Wars. (Once again, Fort Henry was frequently used by Canada as a war prison). I found out through this one that Fort Henry actually was used to hold Ukrainian immigrants who came to Canada from Europe during World War I.
We spent a little more time looking through all the fort’s interesting recreations of the various rooms. At one point, we came across a bedroom meant for soldiers, which Casey thought was a great place to go and get a quick doomscroll in. (HAHAHAHAHA)
This was definitely one of the best history-themed experiences of the entire CANEDA trip, and perhaps even one of the most immersive I’d seen in all of my travels on Inside A Wandering Mind. Everything about the place, from the way the staff dressed to the different locations scattered throughout the fort and all of the props, helped convey a colonial atmosphere that made me feel like I was actually standing in the middle of the War of 1812.
Rating for Experience #35, Fort Henry, A
Unfortunately, we were running even shorter on time than we did during our drive from Boston to Montreal just a few days previously, so this quick but extremely interesting visit to Kingston ended up being our only stop on the trip. Ahead of us was a literal three-hour car ride that would bring us all the way from Kingston to the very interior of the metropolis that was Toronto.
Spoiler Alert: Toronto, save for a handful of very exceptional places, is one of the biggest skylines I’d ever seen in my life and easily the most awesome I’ve seen on this trip. (spoiler warning end)
The first two hours of the three-hour trip went by as usual, with nothing too noteworthy occurring, other than Casey’s serious focus on Geometry Dash. The countryside sort of just passed with the occasional small city or a few suburbs passing by. It didn’t feel like complete wilderness— it just felt like the average, nonexciting place where you wouldn’t expect to see anything crazy. I was getting some pretty heavy Midwestern US vibes from the car ride until the last thirty minutes or so. That’s when the city of Toronto really started to pick up the pace.
The “big city” vibes started when we were still miles out of the city. Even in the middle of the suburbs, far outside of the city center, we were already spotting some pretty impressive buildings that penetrated the sky. The whole region, starting miles around Toronto, was already starting to form the beginnings of a skyline. I could feel my expectations for the downtown growing. If the suburban part of the city already looked almost as impressive as the San Diego Skyline, the downtown must be unreal— almost science-fiction looking.
We switched highways, coming closer and closer to the city with every passing mile. Buildings started to peak just over the horizon, forming the most impressive skyline I’d seen since we visited Tokyo in JP2024. I genuinely can’t think of another city I’ve visited that rivals a skyline like this besides Tokyo— and maybe New York City.
We entered the city around 7:00 PM, roughly 3 hours after leaving Kingston. The city was incredibly massive; there’s really no way to exaggerate the size of this thing. The view of all of those huge skyscrapers towering way above the clouds and the legendary CN Tower (where we will be shortly), just a short distance away, was definitely enough for me to be satisfied with the pictures I took. We passed building after building and eventually arrived at our hotel, which, to the joy of both Casey and me, was sitting right in the middle of all the action; it was right where all the big buildings were.
Our parents went ahead and started checking into the hotel, while Casey and I, who were really eager to start doing some sightseeing, started walking up and down the huge city street, taking pictures of the buildings of the area that immediately surrounded the hotel. We ended up exploring a few alleyways near the hotel, where my brother asked me to take some “tuff” pictures of him posing in the middle. We went back out onto the street a few minutes later and watched the traffic build up.
Rating for Experience #36, The Drive from Kingston to Toronto, B+
After we checked into our hotel room (of which I did not take any pictures of, so I frankly can’t remember anything about it outside of the fact that we ate instant ramen in it late one night) our mom told Casey and me that she actually had a friend who lived in Toronto who knew we were visiting and had invited us to meet for dinner. We quickly took a shower and charged our phones (and Casey locked in on Geometry Dash, of course) before we headed back outside the hotel to be picked up by this friend of our mom’s.
As I expected, the friend that my mom was referring to happened to be a person that I did not recognize at all. She was clearly an old friend of my mom’s, however, because the two of them were pretty excited to see each other and started chatting away immediately, while Casey and I sat in the back of the car, enjoying the opportunity to look at the skyline of Toronto, watching the buildings pass in and out of view as we headed on our way to dinner. I was having so much fun watching the view outside that I completely forgot to take pictures for the next three hours.
For our dinner that night, we ended up going to this Chinese place right in the middle of Toronto’s Chinatown, which is basically a few roads in the city filled end to end with nothing but Chinese restaurant after Chinese restaurant, with the occasional shop and mall sitting in between even more restaurants. There was no shortage of options for places that we could eat from; the place had just about every Asian cuisine sitting somewhere on the edge of the street, fighting for the attention of hundreds of different visitors.
Ultimately, however, we chose to eat at this very large “buffet-style” table where Casey and I ate ten different soups and more spoonfuls of fried rice until we couldn’t take one more mouthful of our dinner. It was pretty clear that we weren’t the only ones who enjoyed this restaurant— the entire place was crowded with people well into the nighttime.
Once we were out of the restaurant and heading back to the car, our mom’s friend offered to give us a quick look around the city before we headed back to our hotel. It was getting pretty late at this point; it was almost 9 PM, and we’d had a long day. Despite this, nobody was tired at all. We all eagerly went back into the car and began to drive around the city. We spent some time around the University of Toronto, cruising through the streets before heading back to one last monument for the night, near our hotel- to be honest, I’m surprised I didn’t know about this place sooner.
One of the most vibrant icons of Toronto’s tourist portfolio is literally just a sign. You might be familiar with the “WELCOME TO LAS VEGAS” sign and the “I AMSTERDAM” in the Netherlands. Well, Toronto has its own.
My parents spent a lot of time simply taking pictures of themselves in front of the TORONTO sign from every angle, which gave me a little more time of my own to examine all of the area around. Next to the main Toronto Sign was a maple leaf and, interestingly, a countdown to the FIFA World Cup. On the day that I visited, we were 308 days away from the World Cup’s beginning; on the day I’m writing this, the World Cup is just three weeks away.
And that wasn’t the only attraction in the area; our family was soon shown to another very interesting building sitting just across the road from the “TORONTO” sign called the Old City Hall. We were in the middle of a city, so its size definitely didn’t seem too impressive, especially when compared with the dozens of skyscrapers that were towering from all around us, but it was certainly pretty big, especially for something built in the 1800s, and had a pretty impressive clock tower. I’ve never seen Big Ben, but this experience is probably the closest I have been to getting to it.
Rating for Experience #37, TORONTO Sign and Old City Hall, B
Cody Nguyen