Fall might just be the perfect time to visit Canada.
With the summer crowds disappearing and prices dropping, it’s an ideal season to travel. Fall also brings stunning beauty as vibrant colors blanket Canada’s mountains, maples, and forests. The crisp air creates the perfect atmosphere for hiking in the many national parks, while the fall harvest offers the flavors of the season (hot apple cider, anyone?).
One of the best ways to experience this beauty is by train. VIA Rail, Canada’s national railway, offers special fall leaves holiday packages in October, giving you a front-row seat to the beautiful fall scenery. Having travelled on VIA Rail ourselves, from Vancouver to Toronto, we can confidently say that it is an autumn adventure worth considering.
In this article, we’ll discuss some of the best fall tours VIA Rail has to offer, as well as share our personal experiences of train travel in Canada.
The 3 Best Fall Tours from VIA Rail
Vacation planning can be a hassle, but VIA Rail makes vacations exactly what they should be: stress-free. Each VIA Rail tour includes a sleeper train ride, hotels, select meals, guided activities, airport transfers and more. Tours across Canada can be uniquely personalized to the needs of each traveler and operate year-round.
Here are the top trips VIA Rail recommends for the perfect Canadian adventure this fall:
1. Fall colours from Quebec to the Maritimes:
This 10-day journey highlights some of Canada’s most beautiful cities and breathtaking fall colors. Beginning in Montreal, guests will explore the best museums, art galleries, and eateries before hopping on the train to Quebec City. Here, guests will get a taste of Europe with sightseeing tours of the European-inspired architecture and countryside. Next, an overnight train takes guests to Moncton, New Brunswick, where they can explore before a ferry takes them to the seaside town of St. Andrews. A drive from Digby, Nova Scotia to Halifax through colorful national forests and rocky coastlines is the perfect way to end this epic fall adventure.
2. Canadian History and Culture by Train:
This 10-day trip from Toronto to Quebec City offers the perfect combination of nature and history. In addition to exploring the city of Toronto, the tour visits the picturesque town of Niagara-On-the-Lake to experience vibrant fall colors against the backdrop of Lake Ontario and Niagara Falls. This is followed by a train journey to Ottawa to experience the heart of Canadian culture through river cruises, museum tours, and walks in the crisp fall air. The tour ends with scenic train rides to the charming European cities of Montreal and Quebec City.
3. Canada from coast to coast by train
This 20-day coast-to-coast journey, with 7 days and 4 nights of cruising on Via Rail’s finest trains, is truly the ultimate Canadian adventure. The tour lets guests experience what fall is like from Halifax to Vancouver and everywhere in between. Similar to the 2 journeys above, the tour stops in Halifax, Montreal, Quebec City, Toronto and Niagara before continuing by train to Ontario. Time spent travelling through the rolling plains of Saskatchewan and Alberta provides the perfect opportunity to relax in the observation car and take photos of the scenery. The crisp fall air is the perfect setting for hiking through the famous Jasper and Banff National Parks. Then, a 2-day journey on the Rocky Mountaineer train takes you through Yoho National Park to the coast of Vancouver to conclude this coast-to-coast journey.
Earlier this year we took the 95 hour train journey from Vancouver to Toronto with VIA Rail, completing the second longest train journey in the world. This journey has quickly become one of our favourite train journeys in the world and we are tempted to go back and experience one of the fall foliage tours for ourselves.
We travelled in a Prestige class room, the most luxurious on the railways. Our room had a comfortable sofa, a pull-out bed, plenty of storage, a private bathroom and a huge window to enjoy the expansive views of the Canadian cities and mountains.
One of our favorite features of VIA trains is the observation cars at the back of the train, which offer panoramic views of the surrounding landscapes. We spent a lot of time here, as this trip truly had some of the best views we’ve ever seen on a train. Prestige class passengers get extra perks, including afternoon snacks and reserved business class seats in the observation car.
Included in our ticket were all meals and alcohol for the duration of our journey. Train food can be hit and miss, but the food on this train was actually some of our favourite food ever. The menu changed daily depending on which chef was on board, but it looked something like this:
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Breakfast: Banana pecan pancakes, omelets or scrambled eggs with vegetables on a bed of potato cakes.
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Lunch: Smoked salmon flatbread, veggie burgers, chicken pie, curry or falafel wraps.
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Dinner: Lasagne, pork tenderloin, cod with a potato chip crust or chicken Florentine.
VIA Rail also makes every effort to fill the menu with as many Canadian products as possible. That’s why the wine list only features wines made in Canada.
There aren’t many activities on the train, but it did mean that we were forced to slow down and relax, which was actually quite nice. We spent our days enjoying the views, reading, drinking coffee and eating delicious food. When the crew organised a bingo night, complete with prizes, we enjoyed joining in and meeting other passengers on the train.
If you’re looking for the ultimate fall adventure (or are itching to take your first train ride), we highly recommend checking out Via Rail for an unforgettable journey across Canada. From the vibrant colours of Nova Scotia and Quebec to the majestic mountains of Canada’s best national parks, trains offer a fun and unique way to experience different parts of Canada during one of its most beautiful seasons.
Want to learn more about what a VIA Rail journey is really like? Check out our YouTube video documenting our incredible adventure from Vancouver to Toronto.
Hi! We’re Kara and Nate. High school sweethearts from Nashville, TN whose shared love of travel led us on the adventure of a lifetime. In 2016, we quit our jobs to travel the world for a year. Seven years later, we still haven’t stopped! We quickly fell in love with life on the road and documenting our travels on video. We’ve visited over 100 countries and have been lucky enough to build an amazing community of subscribers on our YouTube channel and newsletter, Daily Drop. We’re so grateful to get to do what we love every day and we hope our story and content inspires you to travel somewhere new!
