Canada

I have been to every province and the Yukon. Maybe I’ll get to Northwest Territories and Nunavut sometime too? Andrea hasn’t been to Saskatchewan yet.

Andrea and I had both been to the Atlantic Provinces as children in the early seventies. I also cycled from Joliette, QC to St. John’s NL in 1975. We took our children to the Atlantic provinces too. We tented most nights and used hotels when it rained or when our schedule required it. We visited PEI by ferry and saw the Confederation Bridge being built. We drove the Cabot Trail and took a ferry from Yarmouth to Bar Harbour, Maine. We came home through the US, entering Canada near Kingston. Our middle daughter got a stomach bug so we ended up driving all the way home from New Hampshire in one day! When we reached Kingston for the night, all three kids were sleeping so we just carried on.

Highlights were Quebec City, Anne of Green Gables show, the Fortress of Louisbourg at Sydney and the ferry ride. We had hoped to see whales but it was a foggy day.

Andrea and I went to Newfoundland and Labrador in 2014. We travelled with another couple who owned a pickup truck and 5th wheel camper. We drove two long days to take the ferry from North Sydney, NS to Port aux Basques, NL. We had twelve days on the island and saw much of it! We started by heading north to St. Anthony for a great boat tour around a large iceberg. We climbed up over 400 steps in St. Anthony and celebrated with a viking dinner. We stopped at L’anse aux Meadows, a viking landing spot and even had a day trip over to Labrador on the way back to Gros Morne National Park. We took a beautiful boat ride through Western Brook Pond and did some hiking in the part. Then we headed across the island, stopping at many of the peninsulas along the way to St. Johns. We saw a number of icebergs from shore, did more hiking and had lots of great food. We took in shows at Rocky Harbour and Trinity. We saw lovely waterfalls, puffins and moose! We did another small boat tour south of St. Johns and saw whales up close! We even got “screeched in” on George Street, St. Johns. We had fantastic, unusual weather the whole time! One highlight was when we pulled into a campground in Twillingate. Of course the old man on the deck asked us where we were from. Since previous conversations taught us that many Newfoundlanders knew Waterloo Region, we immediately said St. Jacobs, rather than Ontario or “near Toronto”. This guy’s eyes lit up and said “Walter Hackborn!”. Turns out he was recruited to join Home Hardware by the infamous area manager for Newfoundland many years ago and of course had met Walter Hackborn many times. His store was actually sold to the current chair of the board for HH, in Conception Bay, which we visited later on the trip.

The next year, Andrea and I travelled to Western Canada. We started in Edmonton for a family wedding and did a day trip to the Alberta badlands in Drumheller. Then we flew to Vancouver, rented a car and did a tour of BC, including Vancouver Island. Hell’s gate, Salmon Arm, Kelowna, Kamloops, Whistler and Vancouver were highlights of the mainland. In Kelowna we drove up a mountain and cycled an old rail trail with trestles and tunnels. We also cycled around Vancouver harbour and took the water taxi back. In Whistler we went up the gondola and ate at the top. We ran into another couple from St. Jacobs up there! A couple days in Tofino and a night in Victoria were also great. We did a boat tour out of Tofino where we saw lots of wildlife and bears on the shore. It was interesting to retrace some of our cycling trip of 2007.

I covered Saskatchewan and Manitoba with my cycling trips. Andrea came to Winnipeg to see friends and bring our middle daughter along to join our last cycling trip from Saskatoon to Thunder Bay. Andrea and I have been to many parts of Ontario together, sometimes with the kids as well. We did the Agawa Canyon train tour one year as well.

We drove through northern Alberta, BC and the Yukon on our driving trip to Alaska in 2019.

United States

I have been to over 30 states at this point. Many work trips and several pleasure trips. Andrea joined me to San Francisco, CA and Scottsdale, AZ. My brother has a winter place in Tucson, AZ so we visited there as well as their place in Vermont. Andrea and I took a trip to Hawaii in 2018 with the same couple we toured NL with. We then drove from Edmonton to Anchorage, AK and back with that same couple in 2019.

We went to family weddings in San Diego, CA and Seattle, WA. We did a cruise out of San Diego and had a few days in Washington State before the second wedding.

We took our oldest to Florida when she was under 2 and took all three kids to Maryland to visit their Aunt and see the sites of Washington DC. I took the three children to Chicago for a few days, around a voice competition for our oldest daughter. We went to see The Four Seasons, the story of Frankie Valli while in Chicago.

Caribbean and Central America

We had our honeymoon cruise out of Puerto Rico to Miami and have done several cruises in the Caribbean since. We’ve visited Dominican Republic, Cayman Islands, Honduras, Panama, Costa Rica, Guatemala, the Bahamas, Saint Martin, Bonaire and the US Virgin Islands. We went into the Panama Canal on one cruise and stopped in Cozumel, Mexico on two occasions. One of our highlights was a “semi-sub” in Cozumel and swimming with stingrays off Caymen Islands. Snorkelling off Bonaire was also memorable.

We also took a trip to Cuba with our adult children in 2016 after taking a cruise with them in 2010. We had an interesting day trip by bus in Cuba as well as a great catamaran trip including snorkelling and a dolphin show.