Summer’s over, but that doesn’t mean your adventures need to come to an end. Gather your travel buds and plan a visit to Canada’s capital this fall!
Ottawa has more dynamic and memorable activities then you can possibly experience in a week. Convenient direct flights from Porter also make it an ideal destination for an extended weekend getaway.
Feel the excitement. Live the adventure. Be rewarded with experiences that you will treasure forever.
An Adventure for Your Body
Enjoy the serenity of the beautiful autumn colours in Gatineau Park, interrupted by the sounds of your screams as you zipline through the treetops at Camp Fortune. If you are frightened by the experience perhaps some training in Bad Axe Throwing will give you the confidence to face the trees without fear. If it is not the fall, but the hard landing that terrifies you, Sky Zone’s wall-to-wall trampolines will make landings part of the fun with a limitless source of aerial action.
An Adventure for Your Mind
The Diefenbunker: Canada’s Cold War Museum was built to withstand a 5 megaton nuclear blast; will you try to defeat it from the inside by beating the clock at the World’s Largest Escape Room? If watching others perform under pressure is more your thing, world-class entertainers and Stanley Cup hopefuls, the Ottawa Senators, take centre stage at the Canadian Tire Centre. And for a bargain that can’t be beat, learn about astronauts, dinosaurs, harvesting energy, Inuit Art, sword-wielding knights, our veterans, or a crazy kitchen with Canada’s National Museums Passport which gives access to three museums over three days for only $35.
An Adventure for Your Taste Buds
With a 12-course tasting menu for every guest, every night, two-time Canadian Culinary Champion winner Marc Lepine’s Atelier will provide an innovative meal for both your palette and your Instagram. For a completely different culinary experience, enjoy the handmade, locally-sourced perogies at House of Targ while resting between games on their 26 classic arcade cabinets and 17 pinball tables.
An Adventure for Your Spirit
Perhaps you seek an adventure on the inside, the kind that comes from feeling weightless, in a still salt–water pool kept at body temperature as part of the Källa treatment at Nordik Spa-Nature. If it is an adventure with more mysterious spirits that calls to you, the Haunted Walk of Ottawa’s streets and site of the last working gallows in Canada may provide just the supernatural experience you seek. Spookiness outside the safety of the city can be found at what first appears to be but a friendly farm but which turns into FrightFest’s “Ag-Arcade” games and eerie haunts at Saunders Farm.
An Adventure in Shopping
The heart of Ottawa offers two very different sorts of experiences for those whose adventures include finding the perfect gift or an amazing addition to a home or wardrobe. The CF Rideau Centre hosts 170 retailers including Harry Rosen, Nordstrom, Simons, and Tiffany & Co. A few blocks over is Ottawa’s ByWard Market neighbourhood, home to more than 500 business and where dozens of local farmers and artisans sell there delicious, beautiful, or fascinating wares in the open-air year-round. For bargain hunters looking for the outlet experience, head to the west end of the city where the Tanger Outlets offers deals on designer and brand names.