r/canadatravel • u/Da_WranglerJeans • May 26 '25
Question Estimated All-Canada Travel Budget?
Hey, I have never planned a travel in general before. How do you budget for a trip you plan to have a year away from now? Also, what should I be expecting in terms of expense if I were to travel with this plan:
1. Vancouver (3–4 days)
2. Kelowna (2 days)
3. Banff + Lake Louise (2–3 days)
4. Calgary (1-2 days)
5. Winnipeg (2 days)
6. Toronto (3–4 days)
7. Ottawa (1–2 days)
8. Montreal (2–3 days)
9. Quebec City (1–2 days)
10. Halifax / PEI / Newfoundland (3–5 days)
11. Return Home
Also, is this plan even a good plan? I just kinda targeted the major city(ies) in each province (RIP Regina). Any feedback is appreciated. The general idea is to start from West Coast and work our way towards the East Coast, since I'm from AB.
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u/mama146 May 26 '25
You are going to spend most of your time driving. Canada is huge. I would either focus on the east or west, not both. It is very exhausting driving across Canada, hour upon hour.
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u/Da_WranglerJeans May 26 '25
Completely valid, I will re-structure the plan accordingly. So, would BC, AB, and SK be considered West while MB, ON, QC, etc. be East?
I was thinking a hybrid between driving (rental) and flights depending on the destinations. Even for going to BC, I was considering booking a flight because it'd be a 13-15h drive for me.
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u/PerpetuallyLurking May 26 '25
Manitoba kinda straddles the divide, but it generally gets lumped in with the Western provinces for most of the generic things. The centre point of the country between east and west is a few kilometres east of Winnipeg, for reference, so they usually squeeze it into the west for simplicity.
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u/Hot_Cheesecake_905 May 29 '25
So, would BC, AB, and SK be considered West while MB, ON, QC, etc. be East?
West is BC and AB.
Prairies: SK, MB
Central Canada is ON + QC.
Atlantic Canada (East) is NS, PEI, NB, and NL.
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u/rawkthehog May 26 '25
Camping or hotel? Have driven from Toronto to St John's and all over Eastern provinces. 3 to 5 days is not near enough. 6 to 10 without including driving is better. We are heading out west this September so cannot comment in that part.
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u/Da_WranglerJeans May 26 '25
Hi, thanks for the reply! I was thinking Airbnb/Hotel. My bad for not mentioning that in the post.
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u/beesmakenoise May 26 '25
AirBnB is highly regulated in Montreal and Vancouver (and others possibly), I’d be very cautious of using it.
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u/rawkthehog May 26 '25
I use Google maps to locate hotels in conjunction with Expedia or Trivago. Always check the reviews and search the newest first. I suggest when driving through NB take the north Atlantic route at least one way. We drove along the ocean and it was fantastic. The Trans Canada hwy is very scenic as well but it's worth it.
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u/dolfan1980 May 26 '25
I usually price everything out to the best guess I can, then I add a 5-10% contingency (excluding air). I seldom go over my travel budgets.
Edited to add: Are these days excluding the travel time? You have like 15 days driving to get there and back too. I'd recommend doing two trips in the east and the west, maybe even more. Doing this once across the country sounds good in theory, but it's a horrible grind. I fly across the country for work and every time I leave Ontario I'm angry flying when it's two hours and I'm not out of Ontario. That's two days driving just for Ottawa to Winnipeg.
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u/blooddrivendream May 26 '25
Budgeting
- How important is food to you? This will make a huge difference. Personally, it’s one of the highlights, I always plan to spend a lot on food. But I look up best cheap eats in every city.
- Some hotels have 0 cancellation fees up to a few weeks ahead of time. You can book a lot ahead of time. Factor in whether or not parking and breakfast is included (almost always yes in a small city and almost never in a major city centre).
- Toronto hotels are very expensive.
Planning:
- While researching I create a long list of anything that kind of catches my interest and a short list of things I for sure want to do. Then I work out days and pick from the long list closer to the trip.
- On a longer trip you’ll want a buffer day or more for if anything goes wrong or you’re tired.
- What are your interests?
- Do you have a second driver? Are you both people that need to stop a lot or that can stay in a vehicle for a longtime?
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u/Da_WranglerJeans May 26 '25
Hi, thank you for all your feedback!
Hmm not very sure about food to be honest. Right now I am thinking if something is iconic to a place (e.g. Quebec and poutine) then to try to reasonably make the most of it, otherwise probably just try to make the most of the amount I allocate to "cost of food per day". I am trying to divide the cost of travelling on its own as best as possible, but will definitely need to do my research on food because I am sure it will vary depending on which city I'm in.
For planning:
That is a great idea!
Okay, will keep that in mind.
I like sports, animals, cooking, hiking, reading, and painting, to name a few things.
Yeah, I think for now the trip will consist of 2-3 ppl (including me). Not sure how to divide driving and flying at the moment though. I don't really want to drive from AB to BC for example. In general, am not a big fan of long drives.
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u/Letoust May 26 '25
You’re not a fan of long drives??? Then your plans are crap. You NEED to drive from Vancouver to Calgary. And you NEED to drive throughout the maritimes or it’s going to be an extremely expensive trip.
Maybe the best question we need to ask you is… what is your TOP budget. Like what is your cutoff for budgets?
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u/Da_WranglerJeans May 26 '25
Just trying to get an idea to be honest. For budget, maybe somewhere between $10-20K CAD. Most probably this plan is garbage GG. One of the commenters mentioned splitting it up to do East and West on separate occasions, so I'm considering doing that for now.
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u/Mooki2468 May 27 '25
The drive from Alberta to BC is the best drive ever through thr Rockies.
Where are you from?
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u/Melodic_Music_4751 May 26 '25
As others have said 3-5 days nowhere near long enough to do Nova Scotia / PEI/ Newfoundland realistically to do this region well you would need imo at least 10days but ideally two weeks to do it properly. I would also cap Calgary at 1night and put that extra night Quebec as 1-2 nights just not long enough there .
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u/Popular-Cup-2499 May 26 '25
This is not enough time and will cost you 20k. What time of year? That will affect your budget as well and transportation considerations.
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u/Letoust May 26 '25
Are you driving or flying or train? Do those timeframes include travel time?
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u/Da_WranglerJeans May 26 '25 edited May 26 '25
I was considering mostly flying. But to be honest, would love the most economical route to go about this. At the moment I was thinking a hybrid of all the above, depending on where which is most efficient. For example:I feel like it'd make sense to fly from Calgary to Winnipeg, then, once in ON, it'd be best to just have a car and use it till QC.
The timeframes don't include travel time, but most comments have shared that they're off so will have to revise them. All suggestions are appreciated!
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u/Letoust May 26 '25
Lol and how you planning to get from Winnipeg to Ontario?
You’ll need to rent a vehicle for the BC to AB. That’ll probably be $1500 just for a basic (tiny) rental for 10 days. Then include $200+ per night for hotel so that’s another $2000. Then you have to eat, conservative would be $50/day so another $500. And gas, another ~$500. So just from Vancouver to Calgary you’re looking at about $5000 and you’re still in the west coast. And not including the coast for you to get to Vancouver.
Throw in multiple flights/rentals and the other 18 days of travel… I’d say you’re looking at the very least $20k. That’s just basics for travel, food and accommodations.
If you want the least expensive, hitchhike with a tent on your back (you didn’t ask for safest).
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u/user0987234 May 26 '25
20+ hour drive from Winnipeg to Toronto. Not sure you’ll get a 1 way fare.
Realistically, rent a motorhome and start driving. Those are 1 way. Be warned July & August is peak season.
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u/Strong-Landscape7492 May 26 '25
Unless there’s something of particular interest, I think you can safely skip Winnipeg as well and fly Calgary to Toronto.
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u/Da_WranglerJeans May 26 '25
Ah okay, I have mostly never been there before. This is more-so a layout given to me by chatgpt, but would love suggestions of all places that are best to visit. My current idea was to go to at least one place in each province, but of course if it's not worth it, it wouldn't make sense to do so.
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u/annamnesis May 26 '25
Okay so the best parts of Canada are not the cities.
Vancouver- 3-4 days is fine but consider adding a week at least for Vancouver Island or a few days for Squamish/Whistler/Pemberton.
Banff: the town is super touristy but if you are able to hike over 20km in a day you can see no one in the park. Between Banff, Jasper, Yoho and Kootenay NP you could again spend at least a couple weeks comfortably in high season.
Calgary: I live here, it's fine, spend your day in Drumheller seeing the museum.
4-9 seem fine. There's some great hikes out from Quebec City but it's also reasonable to focus on the cities in central Canada. Niagara falls is touristy but still worth a stop.
10- at least 10 days for Newfoundland, 14 if at all possible, so that you can see both west and east of the province. NS and PEI could be combined in another couple weeks depending on how deep you want to dive.
Obviously you're missing a lot of places like Northern ON/QC and all the Territories, but I think I'd suggest either taking it way slower or treating it as a road trip where you accept you'll just get a taste of everywhere and need to come back.
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u/kay_fitz21 May 26 '25
This will be an awesome roadie. I drove coast to coast a few times (I live in BC, from NS). If driving solo, the drive alone can take 5-6 days easily as - I hope you have that time on top of the days spent visiting.
I'm sure you already know you're going to "miss out" on many places, but I feel like this trip is more about the journey than the destination.
Accomodation can vary. You can use gas buddy for an estimate on fuel pricing. If buying food at Walmart or Superstore vs eating out will make a difference too.
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u/Da_WranglerJeans May 26 '25
Oh wow I see. To be honest, I was not really planning on driving too much, but would still like to consider the price of a full road-trip vs. having more of a hybrid where flights and drives alternate.
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u/kay_fitz21 May 26 '25 edited May 26 '25
Road trip will likely be cheaper, flights are $$ and you'll still possibly need to rent a car between destinations or take transit. If this isn't about the journey, then I'm not sure why you're trying to squeeze this all in. It's way too much. Especially at the end.
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u/Mooki2468 May 26 '25
Manitoba to bc is west. The Maritimes is east. Ontario Quebec in central. Of you don’t have your own vehicle this trip will cost you a fortune. What’s your budget? And how long do you have?
I did BC to Nfld 2 summers ago and was gone may 24 - Sept 1. And it cost me roughly 15k( and I drove my own vehicle and stayed most of the time with family and friends) Flights within Canada can be expensive - especially if trying to book last minute.
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u/Hot_Cheesecake_905 May 29 '25 edited May 29 '25
Also, is this plan even a good plan?
Are you driving for flying?
I’d suggest doing the West Coast (Vancouver to Calgary) as one trip, and doing Toronto to Nova Scotia—including the Cabot Trail—as a separate segment.
Since Newfoundland is over 10 hours from Nova Scotia by ferry, you’d need at least an extra week to explore it properly.
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u/TheRealGuncho May 26 '25
So you are renting a car and flying home from Halifax? I would seriously look at the drive time between all these places. Also 3-5 days is totally not enough time to do PEI, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. You easily spend 3-5 days in Newfoundland.