by Cameron Scott

Created on: April 28, 2009   Last Updated: April 30, 2009

Canada. It's friendly. It's diverse. It's beautiful. It's big! And yet it's small and intimate. It's like travelling the world without ever leaving the same friendly country.

If you want a cosmopolitan jazz experience which draws thousands of people every year, we've got it. If you want to get away from it all in the solitary splendour of nature, whether your taste is for a primitive backwoods fishing trip or an upscale spa experience, we've got that too.

We have picturesque fishing villages, a reversing waterfall, Highland games, our own little piece of Middle Earth, Anne of Green Gables, the cradle of Canadian Confederation, authentic French villages, Viking settlements: and that's just on the east coast. Imagine a place where 90% of people come out to vote during a hurricane! Come visit Gander, Newfoundland, which opened its hospitality and its hearts to thousands of stranded air travellers after 9/11. Take the Confederation Bridge from the mainland across to Prince Edward Island, the 'gentle island.' In some areas of Nova Scotia, children still grow up speaking Scottish Gaelic. Take a deep breath, and let the bustle and stress of modern life seep away as you discover old-fashioned values and a slower way of life.

Come have a sunset dinner at the top of the tallest completed free-standing structure in the world. Take a relaxing wine tour through our prize-winning vineyards, home of the world-famous ice wine. See Egyptian mummies, Broadway theatre even better than Broadway can do it, world-class opera. Stop by North America's oldest working oil well, which has been producing high-quality crude oil for over a century. Visit the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in April for the parading of the swans, and then check out a George Bernard Shaw play at Niagara-on-the-lake, just a hop, skip, and jump away from the famous Niagara Falls. Visit the only walled city ever designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and another which subs for New York City in movies which are shot right on the downtown streets while passersby watch. Later, come see those same movies at one of the premiere film festivals of the world, attended by some of the brightest stars in Hollywood and Bollywood. On Canada Day, come celebrate at the nation's capital, Ottawa!

Every one of the destinations in the previous paragraph is within a relaxing three or four hour train trip along the VIA Rail corridor. Buy a VIA Rail Corridorpass and enjoy unlimited travel at your own pace from Windsor/Toronto to

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