Southern Ontario is flat, densely settled and well connected, and the interesting things are within two or three hours in most directions.
Niagara Falls — 2 hours
The obvious one, and it earns it. The Canadian side has the view, because the Horseshoe Falls face this way.
GO Transit from Union Station, or a coach tour that typically adds Niagara-on-the-Lake — a preserved nineteenth-century town with the Shaw Festival and the heart of Ontario’s wine region.
Hamilton — 1 hour
Steel city with a waterfall problem: there are over a hundred waterfalls within the city limits, where creeks drop over the Niagara Escarpment. Webster’s Falls and Tews Falls are the best known.
The Art Gallery of Hamilton is the third-largest in Ontario, Dundurn Castle is an 1835 Italianate villa, and James Street North has an art scene worth a couple of hours.
GO Transit direct.
Stratford — 2 hours
A town of 30,000 with a Shakespeare festival running from April to October across four theatres, founded in 1953 and now one of the largest repertory companies in North America.
The town is pretty, with swans on the Avon River and a very good food scene that grew up around the theatre audiences.
Trains from Union; check the schedule, which is thin.
Prince Edward County — 2 hours
The County — wine on limestone soil, Sandbanks Provincial Park with the largest freshwater dune system in the world, and a great many restaurants. Needs a car.
The Elora Gorge and St Jacobs — 1.5 hours
Elora is a limestone village on a gorge, with a quarry turned swimming hole. St Jacobs nearby is the centre of Ontario’s Old Order Mennonite community, with a large farmers’ market — horse-drawn buggies on the roads and produce sold by people who do not use electricity.
Needs a car.
The Muskokas and Algonquin — 2.5 to 3.5 hours
North into the Canadian Shield — exposed granite, pine, and thousands of lakes. This is the landscape the Group of Seven painted and it is what most Canadians mean by “going up north”.
Algonquin Provincial Park is 7,600 square kilometres of it, with canoe routes, moose, and the best autumn colour in the province from late September into mid-October.
It is a long day trip and much better as an overnight. There is no public transport worth using; hire a car.
Montreal and Ottawa
Ottawa is four to five hours, Montreal five to six by train or car. Both are overnight trips rather than day trips, and both are worth doing if you have the time.
The VIA Rail corridor train is comfortable and books cheaply in advance.
Practicalities
GO Transit covers Niagara, Hamilton, Barrie and the immediate region on Presto.
VIA Rail covers Stratford, Kingston, Ottawa and Montreal; advance fares are much cheaper.
Everything else needs a car. Ontario driving is straightforward; the 407 ETR is an electronically tolled motorway that will bill your rental company with a fee attached, so check whether your route uses it.
Autumn colour peaks in the Muskokas in early October and around Toronto a fortnight later. It is a genuine event and the roads north are busy on those weekends.
Renting a car
Several of these need one. Ontario driving is straightforward and roads are good, but two things catch visitors out.
The 407 ETR is an electronically tolled motorway with no barriers. If you use it in a hire car, the toll is billed to the rental company, which passes it on with an administration fee. It is easy to end up on it accidentally; check your route.
Winter tyres are not mandatory in Ontario but are strongly advised between December and March, and rental companies charge for them.
The colour
Autumn colour is a genuine event in Ontario and the timing is published — Ontario Parks runs a fall colour report updated weekly.
Peak is early October in Algonquin and the Muskokas, mid-October in the Kawarthas, and around the third week in Toronto itself. The roads north are heavily used on those weekends.
The Bruce Peninsula — 4 hours
Longer than a comfortable day, and worth mentioning because it is the most spectacular landscape within reach of Toronto: limestone cliffs on the Niagara Escarpment dropping into the turquoise water of Georgian Bay, with the Grotto at Bruce Peninsula National Park and the shipwrecks visible through the water at Fathom Five.
Parking at the Grotto requires a booked, timed permit in summer and sells out. Treat it as an overnight.
Whitby, Oshawa and the east
Along the lake east of Toronto on the GO Lakeshore East line — the Canadian Automotive Museum at Oshawa and the Parkwood Estate, a 1917 mansion used as a film location, are both better than they sound.