Toronto, Niagara and Lake Ontario - Wild Road Trips and Waterside Retreats

Thirteen days around Ontario, which is large enough that this route barely leaves the southern edge of it and still covers four quite different landscapes.

Toronto opens it with two nights, the St Lawrence Market, the Royal Ontario Museum and a sunset bike ride on the Toronto Islands past the Gibraltar Point lighthouse, which has stood since 1808. Niagara-on-the-Lake follows for the falls, where Horseshoe alone carries most of the Niagara River over a fifty-metre drop, with the Skylon Tower as an optional viewpoint.

Tobermory then gets two nights at the tip of the Bruce Peninsula, on the ancestral land of the Saugeen Ojibwe Nation. The national park there has limestone cliffs and improbably clear water, and a boat trip goes out past shipwrecks to Flowerpot Island and its sea stacks.

Huntsville follows as the gateway to Algonquin, established in 1893 and the oldest provincial park in the province, where canoeing is the proper way to travel and moose, beaver and black bear are all about. Milford in Prince Edward County then gets two nights with a Lake Ontario sailing trip and the mile of sand at Outlet Beach. Ottawa closes the trip with two nights, the UNESCO-listed Rideau Canal, the ByWard Market and Gatineau Park, with an optional crossing into francophone Quebec. Original Travel include the hire car, accommodation, the bike and boat trips, concierge access, a 24-hour helpline and carbon absorption through their own programme. International flights and most meals are separate. Prices run from 2,850 to 4,500 pounds per person.