Fall might just be the perfect time to visit Canada.
With summer crowds disappearing and prices dropping, it is an ideal season for travel. Fall also brings amazing beauty, as vibrant colors blanket Canada’s mountains, maple trees, and forests. The crisp air creates the perfect atmosphere for hikes in the many national parks, while the fall harvest offers the flavors of the season (warm apple cider, anyone?).
One of the best ways to experience this beauty is by train. VIA Rail, Canada’s national railway, offers special fall foliage vacation packages in October, giving you a front-row seat to the beautiful autumn landscapes. Having traveled with VIA Rail ourselves—from Vancouver to Toronto—we can confidently say it’s a fall adventure worth considering.
In this article, we’ll explore some of the best fall foliage tours VIA Rail has to offer and share our personal experience about what train travel in Canada is like.
VIA Rail’s Top 3 Fall Tours
Vacation planning can be a hassle, but VIA Rail makes vacation exactly what a vacation should be, stress-free. Each VIA Rail tour includes a train ride in a sleeper car, hotels, select meals, guided activities, airport transfers, and more. The trips across Canada can be uniquely personalized to each traveler’s needs and take place all year long.
Here are the top trips that VIA Rail recommends taking this fall for the perfect Canadian adventure:
1. Fall Colours from Quebec to the Maritimes:
This 10 day journey highlights some of the most beautiful cities and stunning fall foliage in Canada. Beginning in Montreal, guests on this tour will explore the best museums, art galleries, and food y before hopping on the train over to Quebec City. Here, guests will find a little taste of Europe with sightseeing tours through the European-inspired architecture and countryside. Next an overnight train brings guests to Moncton, New Brunswick where they can explore before a ferry brings 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 journey 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 background of Lake Ontario and Niagara Falls. Next is a train ride to Ottawa to experience the heart of Canadian culture through river cruises, museum tours and walks in the crisp fall air. The tour finishes with beautiful train rides to the charming European-esque cities of Montreal and Quebec City.
3. Canada Coast to Coast by Train
This 20 day coast to coast journey, with 7 days and 4 nights spent cruising on Via Rail’s best trains, is truly the ultimate Canadian adventure. The tour allows guests to experience what fall is like from Halifax to Vancouver and everywhere in between. Similar to the 2 trips above, the tour stops in Halifax, Montreal, Quebec City, Toronto and Niagara before continuing by train to Ontario. The time spent traveling through the rolling plains of Saskatchewan and Alberta gives the perfect opportunity to relax in the observation car and take photos of the scenery. The crisp fall air is the perfect setting to hike through the famed Jasper and Banff National Parks. Then a 2 day trip on the Rocky Mountaineer train drives you through Yoho National Park to coastal Vancouver to end this coast to coast journey.
Earlier this year, we embarked on the 95 hour train ride from Vancouver to Toronto with VIA Rail, to complete the 2nd longest train ride in the world. This journey quickly became one of our favorite train rides in the world and we are tempted to go back and experience one of the fall foliage tours for ourselves.
We traveled in a Prestige-class room, the railways most luxurious of their travel classes. Our room included a comfy couch, pull-down bed, plenty of storage, a private bathroom, and a huge window to enjoy the sweeping views of Canada’s cities and mountains.
One of our favorite features of VIA trains are the observation cars at the back of the train, which offer panoramic views of the surrounding landscapes. We spent a lot of time here because this journey seriously had some of the best views we have ever seen on a train. Prestige-class passengers receive additional perks like afternoon canapes and reserved business-class seats in the observation car.
Included in our ticket were all the meals and alcohol for the duration of our journey. Train food can be hit or miss, but the food on this train was actually some of our favorite food we’ve ever had. The menu switched up every day, depending on what chef was onboard, but it looked something like this:
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Breakfast: Banana pecan pancakes, omelets, or veggie scramble laid on a bed of hashbrowns.
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Lunch: Smoked salmon flatbread, veggie burgers, chicken pot pie, curry, or falafel wraps.
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Dinner: Lasagna, pork tenderloin, potato chip crusted cod, or chicken Florentine.
VIA Rail also does their best to fill the menu with as many Canadian products as possible, so the wine list only included wines that were made in Canada.
There are not too many activities to do on the train, but that meant we were kind of forced to slow down and relax, which was actually very nice. We spent our days enjoying the views, reading, sipping coffee and eating delicious food. When the crew hosted bingo night, complete with prizes, we had fun participating and meeting other passengers on the train.
If you’re looking for the ultimate fall adventure (or have been dying to embark on your first train trip) we’d highly recommend checking out Via Rail for an unforgettable journey through Canada. From the vibrant colors 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.
For a deeper dive into what a journey on VIA Rail is truly like, don’t forget to watch our YouTube video where we document our incredible adventure from Vancouver to Toronto.
Hi! We’re Kara and Nate. High school sweethearts from Nashville, TN whose shared love of travel has led us on the adventure of a lifetime. In 2016 we quit our jobs to spend one year traveling around the world. Seven years later, we still haven’t stopped! We quickly fell in love with life on the road and capturing our travels on video. We’ve visited over 100 countries, and have been fortunate enough to build an awesome community of subscribers on our YouTube channel and newsletter Daily Drop.
We’re so grateful to do what we love everyday and we hope our story and our content might inspire you to travel somewhere new!