Leaving Toronto

The ups and downs of life on the road  

Just like at home, you have good days and bad days when you’re travelling for longer than a regular holiday. They only differ in frequency and in intensity. Good days occur more often and they are just amazing because something new and exciting is happening and bad days are less frequent yet worse than back home – especially when you’ve just arrived at a new place. Getting set-up and organised in a new country can be overwhelming and nerve-wracking.

It’s the first cloudy morning since my arrival and I don’t feel like getting out of bed. After almost a week in Toronto, it’s really about time to sort out a bank account, a Canadian mobile and a social insurance number – and to get a move on. Over my breakfast sandwich, a very friendly 60-something year old South African is chatting to me incessantly when all I really want is a quiet morning. I have to move rooms because the hostel is full and my room has been booked but all of a sudden, it looks like there isn’t enough space in my backpack anymore. When I manage to cramp everything in at last, the backpack feels so heavy that I can barely lift it.

I am starting to realise that backpacking in Canada is going to be somewhat different from Australia. When I speak to the consultant at the Greyhound* bus counter, I learn that, in contrast to Greyhound in Australia, there isn’t a hop-on / hop-off ticket allowing for a long trip with multiple stopovers. So my only option is to rebook the ticket on-route against a 20$ fee each time I would like to stop on the 4-day journey from Toronto to Vancouver, or just to book several one-way tickets, which would drive up the cost astronomically. Rideshare offers exist but are sparse, I can’t find any ads in my hostel neither on kijiji.ca or craigslist.ca, which feature free classified ads for e.g. buy and sell, services, jobs and also rideshares. The train also takes four days and is even more expensive than the Greyhound bus however the journey is supposed to be one of the most beautiful train journeys in the world. I don’t want to buy or rent a car and drive the 7800 km from Toronto to Vancouver all by myself but it would be a shame to fly and miss out on all of this vast territory. Decisions, decisions which I am finding really hard to make today. And on top of it, my laptop is giving me a hard time because it’s not working properly.

After a couple of hours of trying to sort out my travels, I give up. In these situations it makes sense for me to just drop it and do something else for the day. I decide it’s time for some exercise and I head off to the Goodlife gym which offers free 3-day passes for newbies.

In the evening, I meet my friend Inga who I met in Australia. Inga also started off in Canada with a working holiday visa and has now already been living here for more than three years on a regular work permit. I feel relieved when she tells me she had exactly the same experience when she got here, expecting the travels to be similar to Australia. Sitting at the lakefront, we catch up about travelling and life in general before I head back to the hostel with some really useful tips from Inga in my back pocket.

The next day starts well with a free yoga lesson in the park just out front of the hostel. Katherine Downton teaches in Scarborough, where I went the other day to see the Bluffs, and she is amazing. After an hour of strengthening, stretching and relaxing, I’m sufficiently re-energised to explore some more of Toronto before looking into my travel planning again.

Together with Melanie from Montreal, one of my room mates, I set off for Toronto Island. Toronto Island is biggest in a group of islands confusingly called Toronto Islands. It’s just a really short ferry ride (7.50 CAD (5 EUR / 4 GBP) return fare) from Toronto harbour. The remote island is the perfect spot for a relaxing day away from the city. One side of the island faces the city, offering stunning views of Toronto’s skyline. Charming little houses and the walkways around the island invite for a stroll. The beaches with view to the endless lake are the perfect spot for a sunbath on a hot day like this. Melanie and I stop over at a little café for an ice-cream and some quesadilla before embarking on our stroll from Ward’s Island to Centre Island, ending our visit with a little nap on the benches while waiting for the return ferry.

There is one more sight I absolutely want to see before leaving Toronto and that’s the Distillery District. Historically this area housed the Gooderham and Worts Distillery founded in 1832. The old heritage site comprising more than forty heritage buildings and ten streets is the largest collection of Victorian industrial architecture in North America. Since the redevelopment of the site in 2001, the Distillery District is home to many boutiques, art galleries, restaurants, jewellery stores, cafes and one of the local microbreweries, Mill Street Brewery. On a hot day like this, the beer hall and the garden out front of the brewery is buzzing, a life band is playing and people are enjoying their beers in the sunshine. I continue my stroll on my last day in Toronto before I head over to the harbour front for a bit of Toronto by night and a pint at the Esplanade with Melanie.

Slowly but surely my travel plans begin to take shape. Getting to terms with the vastness of this country, I have decided to go east before heading west. Despite the fact that I’m hesitantly leaving Toronto – who knows if and when I will come back here considering the cost for inland flights, train and bus journeys and the amount of time it takes to get across. And before I know, I am finding myself on a seven-hour journey to Montreal on an air-conditioned Greyhound bus, passing through the Ontarian woodland only interrupted by the odd lake and building, while I am typing away on the laptop and watching the landscape roll by.

Tips for working holiday makers arriving in Canada:

• If you’re planning to stay a couple of months and you are planning to work, you will need the following:
  • A social insurance number
  • A bank account
  • A phone number
• The social insurance number can be obtained from Service Canada Centres in most cities. The SIN is required to start a job and it is also required as a form of Canadian identification e.g. to set up a monthly plan with some mobile phone providers. This is only if you don’t have another form of Canadian ID, e.g. Canadian passport or driving license.
• Bank account options are numerous, all with different monthly fees. The cheaper ones only include limited transactions and withdrawing money from other bank’s ATMs is chargeable too. TD Canada Trust currently have a “Welcome to Canada” package which gets you a Premium bank account with unlimited transactions and free withdrawals from all ATMs (not just TD-ones) for free for six months. After that, the account can be downgraded to a cheaper option if desired. All you need to apply (in branch is easiest) is a passport and an address (I gave the address of the HI Hostel I stayed in Toronto).
• The amount of options for mobile phone contracts is confusing too. There is a possibility to get just a prepaid card however I have been told the Canada-wide coverage isn’t as good as with the monthly plans, which start from 30 CAD (16 GBP / 20 EUR) per month with very little data. The data packages drive up the cost. As hostels, busses, some shops and coffeehouses such as Starbucks offer free WiFi, I have decided to go with the prepaid option just to have a Canadian number in case I need it and see how that goes. The best coverage is apparently provided by Telus, Bell and Rogers or their affiliate companies Koodoo, Virginmobile and Fido, who offer cheaper monthly plans. I am going with Virignmobile and I hope Richard Branson appreciates it.
  UPDATE: I went with Koodoo mobile instead because they have cheaper monthly plans including some mobile data for the road. Sorry Rich.
• Rideshares can be found on kijiji.ca, craigslist.ca and also kangaride.com and  amigoexpress.com 

*The Greyhound is the biggest long distance bus company in Canada and also operates in the US and Australia.