Canada Day Weekend Road Trip (ON - QC)

Hi all,
Great site I only found it today when I've been researching a potential road trip I might do in the next couple of weeks.

My basic plan is to drive from Toronto and spend a couple of day at the Gaspe Peninsula over the Canada Day long weekend.

I was thinking I could take the friday and the tuesday off from work to give me 5 days in total with a basic plan something like this:
Friday: leave early and drive the 8 hours to Quebec city. Enjoy the night there, and most of next day.
Saturday: After exploring Quebec city drive 3 hours to Rimouski. Spend the night there.
Sunday: Start off early and enjoy the coastal drive around the peninsula along route 132. Stop off where we want, maybe a short hike, and then stay over night in Mont-St-Pierre.
Monday: Continue on route 132 enjoying the scenery and towns like Gaspe and Perce.

And that is sort of as far as I have gotten with my plan. I need tuesday to get back to toronto, and from there it could be at least a 12 hour drive.

Do I simply not have enough time to make this trip worthwhile? Has anybody been up around there? (I did search the forums).

If anyone has any suggestions on what I might do? or what I might do instead (i.e. road trips closer to Toronto) I'd love to hear from you.

Thanks very much.

Welcome aboard the RoadTrip America Forums!

Your trip looks very enticing, except for one thing. You are going eastward at a very relaxed clip and should have time to appreciate the beautiful countryside you'll be driving through. None of your driving days is too taxing, and you seem to have some definite ideas about the places you want to stop and the things you want to see. All well and good. But You will have to turn around for home a good bit sooner than you now seem to be planning. Gaspé to Toronto is over 910 miles and is quite a bit more than a 12 hour drive. In fact you should be at least back to Rimouski before the end of day Monday if you plan to get back to Toronto on Tuesday. As far as some specific recommendations, check out these thoughts by Gen on Québec, and these (1, 2) on Gaspé.

AZBuck

Thanks AZBuck...I was actually just searching for Gen's posts as Google had returned some snippets when I searched, so thanks very much for pointing me towards those.

I know what you are saying about being back in Rimouski by monday night.
So I researched some more and was thinking if I did the trip around the peninsula anti-clockwise it may help.

Plan might be something like this:
Friday:
Leave Toronto @ 05:00.
Arrive Quebec City @ 13:30. Enjoy the afternoon and evening there.
Saturday:
Leave Quebec after good sleep ;) and drive to Caplan through the valley. Should take 7 hours, so I don't need to rush.
Sunday:
Scenic drive along coast, stopping where I like, to Gaspe. Drive is 3 hrs with no stops so plenty of time for sightseeing.
Monday:
Gaspe to Matane which is a 5 hour drive. So again time for stops etc if we leave early enough.
Tuesday:
Matane back to Toronto, which according to Google is 12 hours.

What do people think of that? Too much driving and not enough sightseeing? I have no problem with it but I think my gf might not be too keen on the all the driving we'd be doing.

It just sounds so awesome up there that I have it in my head now and want to make it fit ;)

Matane to Toronto is over 730 miles. That is a 12 hour drive only in the fantasy world of on-line software. In the real world, that is going to be at least 14 hours, and is no way to finish off what should be a very relaxing drive. You're going to need to aim to keep your miles more evenly spread out over your driving days. Keep in mind that this trip is going to be around 2000 miles total over 5 days, or 400 miles per day. I know a day where you have to drive less than 200 miles (e.g. Gaspé to Matane) sounds enticing, but you can't afford it given how many miles you have to cover in the end.

If this is starting to sound like more than you or your girlfriend want to take on, you could make your destination a little closer to home, say Baie-Comeau and some of the provincial parks along the left bank of the St. Lawrence, with a ferry crossing to Matane as your turn-around marker for the return up the right bank. That would work and let you take three days out, do a sunset or sunrise ferry, and two days back.

AZBuck