Toronto and Vancouver are famous travel destinations, but some small Canadian cities deserve just as much attention because they offer amazing food, fascinating history, beautiful scenery, and the chance to explore without huge crowds or high prices.
Thunder Bay, Ontario
Travelers looking to conquer Canada’s Midwest often view Thunder Bay as little more than a snowy outpost on their long drive through Northern Ontario. But the lakeside city is a dream for outdoor enthusiasts. Nestled along Lake Superior, Thunder Bay is your direct gateway to Sleeping Giant Provincial Park, known for its towering cliffs and some of the best hiking in central Canada.
The city itself has quietly developed a stellar dining scene that mixes classic Finnish bakeries (known for monster pancake breakfasts) and new craft breweries and farm-to-table restaurants.
Regina, Saskatchewan
Regina often gets pegged with jokes about boring, pancake-flat prairie scenery and harsh winters, but it punches well above its weight in urban green space. Anchored by a large lake in the downtown centre, Regina’s Wascana Centre is a 2,300-acre meticulously landscaped urban park that is over twice the size of New York’s Central Park and Vancouver’s Stanley Park combined.
At its centre is the elegant, granite Legislative Building, as well as miles of multi-use trails and wildlife (especially waterfowl). This gives the city a remarkably majestic, tranquil and walkable centre.
Winnipeg, Manitoba
Winnipeg is often stereotyped as being windy with icy cold winters (locals have lovingly nicknamed their city “Winterpeg” for generations). But dig a little deeper beyond our winters and you’ll discover that Winnipeg is actually one of Canada’s most exciting cultural centres.
It features the award-winning architecturally significant Canadian Museum for Human Rights, a globally renowned royal ballet company and the world’s largest district filled with intact turn-of-the-century brick warehouses known as the Exchange District. And in winter, the rivers freeze and become one of the longest naturally frozen skating trails in the world, complete with designer warming huts.
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
Too often dismissed as merely another sleepy agricultural centre, Saskatoon has emerged stealthily as the “Paris of the Prairies.” It’s nestled around the rolling, picturesque South Saskatchewan River and connected by an archipelago of epic old stone bridges that divide a bustling downtown core.
Saskatoon boasts the formidable Remai Modern world-class museum that contains the largest collection of Picasso linocuts in the world, as well as a hyper-local food renaissance using ingredients like Saskatoon berries and chanterelles.
Moncton, New Brunswick
Moncton tends to be overlooked by visitors trying to get directly to Acadian seaside postcard towns like Halifax or Charlottetown. But, as the geographic centre of the Maritimes and a bilingual hub, it also boasts Magnetic Hill, a freak natural occurrence where your car really does roll backwards uphill all by itself, and the awe-inspiring Tidal Bore created when the Bay of Fundy’s enormous tides reverse the flow of the local river twice a day. Moncton is also a cheap central base camp for Acadian culture and warm-water beaches.
Hamilton, Ontario
Long overshadowed by Toronto, Hamilton has been shedding its one-dimensional reputation as a gritty, post-industrial steel town and has been experiencing a cultural revival. Nestled along the Niagara Escarpment, Hamilton boasts over 100 breathtaking waterfalls tucked away within its forested municipal limits.
Vibrant pockets of low-key, historic neighbourhoods are brimming with artists, independent coffee shops, thrift boutiques, and Hamiltonians are proud to say that their farm-to-table culinary options compete with anything Toronto has to offer.
Lethbridge, Alberta
Lethbridge is often overlooked by visitors speeding south from Calgary into the Rocky Mountains. Carved from the sweeping, windswept canyons of the Oldman River valley, the city is home to one of the world’s largest and tallest steel trestle bridges crossing through the High-Level Bridge.
Lethbridge features the serene Nikka Yuko Japanese Garden, a landscaped wonder constructed to celebrate Japanese Canadians in the area. It’s peaceful and beautiful with a healthy side of history.
Windsor, Ontario
Though conveniently located across the river from Detroit, Windsor has been stereotyped as a simple border town or blue-collar factory city. However, Windsor is actually Canada’s southernmost city, sitting on the same latitude as Northern California, which provides Windsor with an impressively warm climate.
Windsor also happens to be home to the EPIC Wine Country (Essex Pelee Island Coast), a rapidly expanding, flat viticulture area boasting dozens of award-winning, lakefront wineries. In addition, it features a vibrant downtown area offering some of the most diverse and authentic ethnic cuisine in Canada due to Windsor’s highly multicultural population.
Red Deer, Alberta
Red Deer is located halfway between Calgary and Edmonton. For this reason, most people use it as nothing more than a stop to stretch their legs and fill up their tank of gas. It truly is a family-friendly, nature lover’s paradise. There’s the Kerry Wood Nature Centre, and over 60 miles of paved scenic trails throughout Waskasoo Park.
The trails wind through dense forests and are perfect for biking, walking, rollerblading, or hiking. The pace of life is laid back, very down-to-earth. There are also beautiful lakes nearby, an active local theater community, and zero mountain-resort tourist markups.
Trois-Rivières, Quebec
Far too often overlooked by travelers hurrying between Montreal and Quebec City, the main artery connecting the two jewels of Quebec, Trois-Rivières is, in fact, the second oldest city founded by the French in North America.
It boasts an immaculately restored historic district filled with colonial-era architecture, quaint independent boutiques and traditional Québécois bistros. Home also to Boréalis, a quirky hands-on museum housed in a former paper mill and dedicated to exploring the area’s logging past, it has all the romance and cachet of Quebec culture minus the tourists.
Sources: Please see here for a complete listing of all sources that were consulted in the preparation of this article.
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