Welcome to our Atlantic Canada Travel Guide practical information page, where we share some advice and tips to help you plan your own trip to Atlantic Canada.

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Trip planning

This was one of the few trips that we planned without using an actual travel guidebook (we, however, have since read Moon’s guidebook on Atlantic Canada and highly recommend it for those interested in planning with a guidebook). Most of our research was done online and focused on Gros Morne National Park (NP) as the centrepiece of the trip, with a few days each in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.

Transportation

As highlighted earlier, we long debated whether to directly fly to Gros Morne NP. In the end, we decided to make our own way up to the NP by car from Montreal, which would save us both airfare and car rental costs. This also allowed us the opportunity to visit some other parts of the Atlantic provinces that we had yet to visit. 

To maximize our time in the Atlantic provinces, we skipped quickly through eastern Quebec and the state of Maine (USA) to make our way into New Brunswick and drove nearly 8 hours to do so on our first day. This helped to keep the travel distances down from here on in. Flying into Halifax (Nova-Scotia) would have been a more ideal starting point to maximize our time in the Atlantic provinces, but much more costly for us (considering both the flight and rental car costs) given that we live in Montreal.

Gros Morne National Park is located on Newfoundland’s west coast. It is roughly 30 minutes from Deer Lake airport, the closest airport to the National Park. However, if flying here you can expect at least a layover or two, depending on your departure airport, as incoming flights only connect with several airports in eastern Canada. If coming by car, the park is a four-hour drive from the ferry at Port aux Basques (which is how we arrived). The Ferry connects North Sydney (Nova-Scotia) and Port aux Basques (Newfoundland) takes 6 to 8 hours depending on weather conditions. A time- and cost-saving option is to take the night crossing, which is what we did.

Gros Morne National Park

A UNESCO World Heritage Site covering 1,805 square kilometres, the park is a pleasure to drive through and offers various activities such as hiking, kayaking, and boat tours. If you are lucky, you will come across some of the abundant wildlife that lives in the park. But also know what to do should you run into one of the larger inhabitants of the park, such as moose and black bears.

The park is divided into Southern and Northern sections, each of which takes roughly an hour to drive through. Though you will want to drive more slowly to enjoy the scenery. The southern section is visited via a secondary road (road 431), meaning that you will need to backtrack to make your way up to the northern section further up the main road (road 430). We chose to have home bases in both the Northern and Southern sections to avoid having to travel back and forth between both more than we had to, even if the scenery was gorgeous. We stayed in Trout River for the Southern Section, and in Rocky Harbour in the Northern section.

Note that entry and service fees are charged at most national parks and national historic sites in Canada. These revenues are important to support visitor services and facilities. Depending on the length of your stay, you can pick between the CAD9$/day rate or the CAD49$ annual fee. (2019: updated)

Icebergs and Whale-Watching

We had planned to travel in late June, which coincides with Iceberg season. However, Gros Morne NP itself was not the best place to view icebergs. But it just so happened that a few hours north of there was the perfect place to see them: the northwestern town of St-Anthony. Be sure to check out the local boat tours to get closer to some of these glacial giants. St-Anthony is also a great base from which to go whale watching and is just 40 km south of Anse-aux-Meadows, a National Historic Site of Canada and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, due to it being an important archaeological site of the first Viking settlement in North America, dating back to approximately 1000 years ago. 

Weather

We were extremely fortunate weather-wise during our stay in Newfoundland. On most days it was sunny and in the low 20’s Celsius – but, it actually snowed two weeks prior to our visit and it rained most of the week following our visit. So don’t necessarily come expecting good (or very warm) weather, though it is perfect for hiking when sunny. The July average daily maximum temperature in Gros Morne is 22 Celsius.

For more information on the local weather in western Newfoundland, see also this Wikipedia page for monthly temperature and rainfall averages.

Costs

On average, costs were on par with that of other Canadian destinations. Although gas and food tend to be more expensive due to the remoteness of the area, accommodation options tend to be cheaper than average – though with fewer high-end options.

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