Visit and explore Ontario, Canada, tourism, travel guide

First we want to introduce ourselves. We are a small Canadian company with strong German background. With respect to web designs, we see a big market in the tourism industry. We tried without any success to cooperate with official government funded tourist agencies to promote our province in the German language.
Our concept of designing tourist web sites has been approved by many readers. We even have received excellent response from all over the world from people who hardly speak any German. They asked us for so many details which they could not find in the existing English sites. They also recommended to have an English version of our guide.
Now, we have decided to do so. Please understand - we are not a tourist agency and that we have serious financial restrictions.
The concept of our web site is to introduce our province to the world in the English language and to show people what the can do here and also point out things which may be different to their home countries. We gladly listen to suggestions to improve our work. We write what we feel. If we make any mistakes, please send an e-mail and we will check and correct our site if necessary. Nobody is perfect!
For reasons - unknown to us - new tourist regions have been created by the government. However, they forgot to provide useful maps. They even do not show properly the location of Ontario. Obviously they assume that somebody in China, Japan, Russia etc. is familiar with Canada and Ontario. As soon as maps of the new assigned tourist regions are available we will use the new regions in both of our travel guides.
We consider it as a main task to attract people and make them feel comfortable when booking a trip. They must know what to expect. For that reason our site is different to all the award winning existing web sites which concentrate mainly on offering accommodations, restaurants and attraction for which you must pay when visiting them. We believe the yellow pages which can be found at Yellow Pages provide all these information in an excellent form and we do not see any need to charge customers money for a plain listing without any further information.
We believe that each visitor who wants to explore Ontario, needs accommodation and food. Certainly, nobody is just coming for that. Interesting - especially for foreigners - may be to present typical Canadian or North American food with a brief description. We did something similar in our English Internet travel guide for Thuringia because of many requests from US citizens.
Our guide is written without any influence by the tourism business.
Please also acknowledge that this tourist guide is not only written for North Americans. For that reason we describe details which are familiar to people from Canada and the United States but not necessarily to the rest of the world.
We will include free of charge links to good English web sites with content which helps us to make Ontario popular. However, we will not provide free links to strictly commercial sites.

Canada is using the metric system. However, many Canadians are still not familiar with it.
Ontario is bilingual - English and French. However, English is the most spoken language.
Ontario has an area of 1.068.580 square kilometers which means about 3 times the size of Germany. The population is approximately 12 500 000.
The road system in the populated area is still well kept and with one exception no tolls are charged for using the highways. We drive on the right hand side of the road.
Naturally, we do not know how from where you come and how you enter our province. If you come from overseas, we recommend that you ask your travel agency what you need for entering Canada.
If you want to travel by car it may be an advantage to book a rental car through a travel agency in your country. Please be aware that certain vehicles, such as a motor homes are not available at airports. However, a good rental company may pick you up at the airport.
Please do not try to see all of Ontario in two or three weeks. Do proper planning and enjoy your vacations. Our Internet travel guide may be of some help even when it is not yet complete. We have our limits what we can do without financial support by advertisers.
We do not want that you leave disappointed.
For that reason, some information and advises which apply especially for Ontario.

If you travel by car or motor bike:

If you come from overseas do not forget your international drivers license.
Put down the names of everybody who is going to drive a rented vehicle. This is important to have insurance coverage.
The majority of rental cars is equipped with automatic transmissions. If you never have driven such a car familiarize yourself first! Don't be surprised if you like this easy kind of driving so much that you do not want to drive anything else in future.
Don't forget the membership card of your automobile club - you may get some discounts by showing it at certain places.

Driving in Ontario:

Speed limits apply everywhere.

The standard is:

• on normal highways 80 km/h
• on highways with at least two lanes in each directions 100 km/h. This will be indicated by traffic signs.,
• in villages 50 km/h

Normally you can travel without major traffic jams. Be aware that on major highways the discipline of drivers in Ontario has dramatically turned to the worse. They pass you on any side, sometimes even on the pavement, they squeeze in whenever they see a gap. They love to tailgate and to be tailgated. The average speed is 120 km/h even when only 100 km/h are allowed. I don't mind that but the ridiculous passing and tailgating should be punished - it could provide a good income for the province.
In Ontario you are allowed to do a right hand turn at a traffic light (if not otherwise indicated). However, you must stop first before you do so. The same applies for left hand turns on the intersection of two one way streets.
If you come from a country where on intersections without traffic signs the car coming from the right has the first right of way - forget about that! Each intersection has traffic signs.
Many intersections have even stop sign on each road. This is an excellent measure to reduce the risk of collisions. The car which comes first to such a street crossing can drive first.
Please familiarize you with the traffic laws before you start driving.

Swimming, bathing, boating etc.:

Ontario is blessed with many beautiful lakes. Some of them are so large that you may believe you are on the ocean. They are open for boating, wind surfing, swimming, and fishing.
There are a few restrictions which you should obey. Most of them apply to fishing and boating.
Please ask at any tourist office and collect written information. In certain lakes swimming and bathing may be temporary restricted because of pollution. This is always clearly shown on signs.
If you come from Europe, please be aware that you are not allowed to swim or to take a sunbathe in the nude when other people can see you. We also do not recommend that women take their tops off - it seems to be allowed but I never saw anybody doing it.
Even when you visit a sauna, you will learn that man and women are not allowed to go together and you must be "properly" dressed.

Please tell us your experience! E-Mail: info@itcwebdesigns.com

Cruising along Lake Erie

Dining and wining:

The fact that Ontario has many lakes does not mean that drinking tap water is a pleasure. Most people in Ontario drink bottled water. I joined those smart people after I learned that our "town water" changed its taste every month.
All restaurants serve free ice water with your meals. I believe that most of it is filtered water because it tastes acceptable.
If you are used to have a glass of wine or a beer with your meal you can get this around noon, but not earlier. Ontario offers good beer and wine. During the last years local wineries improved the quality of wine dramatically and won already many international awards. I personally prefer the beer brewed in Ontario.
In order to purchase alcohol you must go to a "Liqueur Store". Beer is also available in special "Beer Stores" and wineries are allowed to sell directly to you.
If you come from overseas, you should not miss to try some of the Canadian home cooking. Normally the menu may not show the variety of meals which you are used to, but the portions are large and it is always interesting to try something different. Please do not avoid plain, small restaurants. Sometimes the food is better than in really fancy ones. Do not forget to gain some experience with fast food. Go into a KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken), Harvey's, Tim Horton etc. Enjoy the smoke free atmosphere in all eating places and bars.
Almost all of our visitors loved to go to "China Restaurants", preferable, when they offered a buffet. You can eat as much as you want for a very moderate price.
Experience also a "Brunch" which is a combination of breakfast and lunch. Many restaurants offer this only on weekends. Similar to a Chinese buffet you pay a certain amount and you can eat as much as you can.

Shopping:

Everybody who visited us went shopping. At first the favorite places were the large shopping malls. Later our friends discovered that it is also exciting to visit little independent speciality stores. Sometimes the prices were better there because the rent and other fees to be paid in the malls are very high. Please be always aware that the displayed prices do not include any taxes. Also do not through away any receipts because you can claim a tax refund on many purchases before you leave the country.

Pow Wow in Fort Erie

A hot day in Toronto

Ottawa our capital- many thanks to "Ottawa Tourism".

Now enough of the basics, please follow us in the 12 tourist regions of Ontario.

Note: We are still using the "old" tourist regions. For reasons never being explained to us, the Ontario government has redefined the tourist regions without having proper reference maps for them. By visiting an official tourist information center shortly after that happened I learned that it has not even been informed about these changes. For that reason they still had all information organized following the "old" tourist regions. They have changed that in the meantime, but I didn't!

Above map shows the twelve old official tourist regions of Ontario. We follow these tourist regions of our province. At least we have some maps which show some essential information.