Toronto to Ottawa

Four days, two bikes, and everything we needed on our backs. We rode the whole way from Toronto to Ottawa, and the province kept reminding us what great riding we have right in our backyard.

This is a four-day journey the length of southern and eastern Ontario, linking the country's largest city to its capital by bike. It is a true point-to-point rather than a loop, so every one of the 503 km is progress east: you wake up somewhere new each morning and you never retrace your wheels. We planned it around water views, good places to stop for a coffee or a bite, and roads with room to breathe, and stitched it together from the Waterfront Trail, county backroads, a free ferry, and a run of car-free rail-trails that do a lot of the heavy lifting near each finish.

Day one runs east from the Distillery District along the Lake Ontario Waterfront Trail to the heritage main street of Port Hope. Day two crosses into Prince Edward County, following the long gravel Millennium Trail into Picton. Day three is the big one, the longest day of the trip, hopping the free Glenora Ferry and threading the Loyalist lakeshore through Kingston and out along the Thousand Islands Parkway to Brockville. Day four turns inland off the St. Lawrence, picks up its first real gravel, and finishes on a car-free pathway into downtown Ottawa near Parliament Hill.

Each day below has its own full page: the route map, the reel, the stops we used, and the place we stayed that night. Ride the whole thing as a bikepacking trip, or pull out a single day as a standalone route.