Searches for rural stays climb as Canadians travel close to home this fall

This fall, Canadians are heading for the backroads. Searches for domestic stays are up 25 per cent year over year during the upcoming fall season,¹ building on a record 2025, as travellers trade city weekends for lakeside cabins and the small towns. Fall also remains the top season for weekend getaways,² sending travellers and their spending to the cafés, galleries and farmers markets in communities they visit.

Rural travel is having a moment

Searches for rural destinations are up nearly 30 per cent year-over-year.³ From the red cliffs of Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine, Quebec to the coastal rainforest of Haida Gwaii, British Columbia, Canadians are looking well past the city limits this fall. Some of the rural destinations seeing the greatest increase in searches include:

• Montebello, Quebec: Maples turning gold along the Ottawa River, the world's largest log cabin, and a drive-through wildlife park just down the road.
• Goderich, Ontario: Known as Canada's prettiest town since Victorian times, with a lakefront boardwalk, three sandy beaches, and Lake Huron sunsets that locals swear are the country's best.
• Lac-Sainte-Marie, Quebec: Cottages line a mountain-ringed lake in the Haute-Gatineau hills, with hiking, paddling, and golf around Mont Ste-Marie.
• South Frontenac, Ontario: Pink granite, clear lakes, and easy boardwalk trails in Frontenac Park, plus canoe routes linking 22 lakes.
• Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine, Quebec: Red cliffs and brightly painted Acadian roots, with a traditional herring smokehouse, a cheesemaker, and a microbrewery worth the ferry ride.
• Haida Gwaii, British Columbia: An archipelago of rainforest and rugged shoreline, where the Haida Heritage Centre and the village sites of Gwaii Haanas tell 13,000 years of history.
• Kootenay Boundary, British Columbia: Larches turn the mountains gold from late September, above Rossland's ridge trails and the Regional District's old mining towns and ghost towns.
• Twillingate, Newfoundland and Labrador: A working lighthouse and museum above the Atlantic, coastal trails past sea stacks, and boat tours out of the harbour.
• Prince Edward Island (province): Red-clay roads and hardwood forest peak in mid-October, alongside the Fall Flavours festival and Malpeque oyster season.
• Powell River, British Columbia: At the top of the Sunshine Coast, where Canada's longest hut-to-hut trail runs 180 kilometres through old-growth forest, with chanterelle season in the woods and a 1913 cinema still screening nightly.

Gen Z is chasing the scenery

Coastlines, escarpments, and foothills are pulling Gen Z travellers toward small towns with big scenery close by - domestic fall searches among this group are up nearly 40 per cent year-over-year.⁴ Some of the top searched destinations among Gen Z include:

• Cochrane, Alberta: A foothills town on the edge of the Bow Valley, with panoramic Rockies views from Cochrane Hill, riverside trails through Glenbow Ranch Provincial Park, and a downtown institution in MacKay's Ice Cream.
• Colwood, British Columbia: A stretch of Vancouver Island coastline just west of Victoria, with a lagoon beach, a clifftop lighthouse, and the gardens of Hatley Castle.
• South Bruce Peninsula, Ontario: The world's second-longest freshwater beach at Sauble, with a waterfall just up the road and the drive north to the Grotto.
• Petite-Rivière-Saint-François, Quebec: A village where Le Massif de Charlevoix drops from summit to the St. Lawrence, with a gondola, mountain biking, and summit dining above the river.
• Cape Breton, Nova Scotia: Highland colour along the Cabot Trail in mid-October, a tasting at Canada's first single malt distillery, and Celtic Colours marking its 30th year with concerts across the island.

Families are keeping it classic

For families, this fall's biggest draws are the classics: well-known resort villages and lake towns within a 90-minute to three-hour drive of Canada's biggest cities. Searches among this group are up nearly 40 per cent year-over-year,⁵ with the following destinations seeing the most interest:

• Gravenhurst, Ontario: The gateway to Muskoka, two hours from Toronto, with cruises on North America's oldest operating steamship and an outdoor sculpture gallery along a forest trail.
• The Blue Mountains, Ontario: A resort village at the foot of the escarpment, with a clifftop suspension bridge and the Apple Pie Trail's orchards and cider houses through harvest season.
• Mont-Tremblant, Quebec: A pedestrian village at the base of the Laurentians' best-known peak, with a gondola built for leaf-peeping, Quebec's oldest park next door, and crêperies along the cobblestones.
• Parksville, British Columbia: A Vancouver Island beach town where the tide goes out for a kilometre, with old-growth Douglas fir trails behind the sand and goats grazing on the roof at Coombs Old Country Market just up the road.
• Invermere, British Columbia: A Columbia Valley town on Lake Windermere, with warm-water swimming, hot springs in Kootenay National Park up the highway and Kicking Horse Coffee roasted in town.

"Fall shows this country at its very best, and more Canadians are choosing to see it for themselves. From the shorelines of the Great Lakes to the gold larches of the Kootenays, they are becoming explorers closer to home this season. And every one of those trips means real support for local hosts and the small businesses that keep those communities going."