We did this trip in 2008.  You can read some of our blog posts starting with New Brunswick which will give you an idea of some of the places we enjoyed.

Barb

So…following up on this thread as I'm starting to plan our travels up there next summer. For those of you who've already been how do these time frames for visiting various places sound. We're mostly interested in parks, hiking, birding, wildlife watching and not as interested in the gift shops. We did the Alaska caravan last summer and it was too fast paced for us…too many travel days relative to the whole trip so we're going it alone for this trip.

We've already been to Halifax and Truro on an earlier trip (albeit without the RV) so I'm currently thinking of the following subject to any brilliant suggestions or cautions that I'm spending too much or too little time in an area.

Cross border at I-95 in Maine about June 20 and proceed over Moncton for 4-5 days

Over to Sydney for 4-5 days.

June 29 ferry over to Newfoundland for 3 weeks.

July 22 ferry back to mainland and a week on Cape Breton Island.

July 30 over to Halifax where I'll stay a week while Connie flies to Philadelphia for a work/professional society related meeting.

Aug 5 Connie returns and move north to New Glasgow area for a week

Aug 13 Ferry over to PEI for 10 days; spending 5 days in eastern part and 5 in western part.

Aug 23 leave PEI to Amherst via the bridge on the western end of PEI.

Aug 28 arrive back at Maine border and head south.

So…what do ya think? Have I over or underestimated how much time I need in any of these places? I think maybe a little over estimated for New Glasgow as that's pretty close to Truro and we've already seen a lot of stuff in that area but otherwise I'm pretty much guessing on time frames…although I did look at some of the tourism sites to try and get an idea. Mostly at this point I'm just trying to make sure that I'm not wasting days in uninteresting parts of the area and not having too few days to see the cool parts.

Bonlou10 wrote:

---

Neil and Connie,
If you like hiking and birding I would plan to spend a few days Fundy National Park in New Brunswick and on the way to Moncton. http://www.happileerving.com/2015/07/fundy-national-park-new-brunswick-canada.html
We enjoyed the Hopewell Rocks which are easily drivable down the coast from Moncton. http://www.happileerving.com/2015/07/hopewell-rock-new-brunswick-canada.html
Have a wonderful trip.

---

 Those are on our list once we get to the detailed planning. At this point I'm just trying to get the overall trip figured out…where…how many days each place…how many days border to border and such. We could clearly spend April to September there and not see everything but as with our Alaska trip we're trying to get a decent overview of the provinces.

Our Alaska trip was 60 days and the Maritimes caravan which we passed on is 39 days…with our June 19 to Aug 28 or thereabouts border to border that gives us 70 days or so in country which lets us proceed at our desired pace instead of the caravan's required pace which is way, way, way too high a percentage of travel days.

I think my planned stopping times are good but am hoping those that have been there before will be able to point out any places where I way over or under estimated the stay time. As full timers…we are in a much different mode than vacationers would be.

bjoyce wrote:

---

On "instead of the caravan's required pace which is way, way, way too high a percentage of travel days.". Told you so. <grin>

---

Yeah…we knew it would be…and if it had been me I woulda gone on our own but Connie felt more comfy having Bill and Linda along with us and some semblance of a schedule. Even on our own it's still more driving days than we would prefer…but knowing then what we knew at the end…we would have skipped some stops completely and cut the 32 days out of 60 traveling down to probably 20. Still more than we would want…but we would have extended the time period another 3-4 weeks too. Alaska and Yukon are just big so we knew going in we would be traveling more than we liked.

It wasn't really the 32 days out of 60 traveling that bothered us…it was the fact that on 18 of those days we had afternoon and evening activities scheduled…and knowing we paid for them we felt like we had to go even though our preferred travel day activities are park and open a bottle of wine. If we had traveled that many days without activities we would have felt not as rushed…but then I understand the caravan companies dilemma as well…a lot of their clientele is 'on vacation' and hence in 'vacation mode' rather than 'full timer mode' and if company A doesn't do as much they lose business because they're 'not as good a value' or some such garbage.

We were with RV Adventure Treks…which is about the most laid back outfit going to Alaska and it was still too regimented. Add in the fact that (in our opinion) the leader played favorites and it wasn't the overall best experience we could have wished for. It's his company though…so he can run it as he sees fit…but I know at least 4 couples that were on the Alaska trip this past summer who've cancelled their plans to go with him to the Canadian Maritimes the upcoming summer. We're still going up there…but on our own and we'll spend about 70 days up there in total instead of 39 on the caravan and have half the number of travel days the caravan would have had.