And speaking of reasons to need my passport

[annathepiper]

Early warning to all my Canadian peeps who haven’t seen me mention this on Facebook, Twitter, or G+ already: next year, solarbird and I wish to have a Great Canadian Trainventure!

The core of this is this music festival in St. John’s. I’ve wanted to hear Newfoundland music on Newfoundland soil for a while now, and so when I saw Mr. Hallett of the B’ys tweet about this, I went HEY! Also, I do have writing-related reasons I want to see St. John’s, as those of you who’ve read Faerie Blood have probably heard me mention–and I’m given to understand that if you want to visit Newfoundland, July-August is about the window wherein the weather is probably not going to suck.

But! The Trainventure part of this comes in with how Dara and I want to take the train across the country rather than fly, and stop in interesting places on the way. brightbeak has already favored me with a wealth of recommendations if we get to stop in her neck of the woods in New Brunswick. I will however very definitely welcome other recommendations on Interesting Places to Stop, keeping in mind that our travel route will be between Vancouver and St. John’s, and that I’ll probably have about three weeks’ total time to play with, the core of which will be the festival.

Also, for those of you who actually are in Newfoundland, if you have any recommendations on good little hotels or bed-and-breakfast type places that Dara and I might stay in in St. John’s when we’re there, I will totally want to hear them.

And if any of you want to arrange to see us, let me know! Actual details won’t be hammered out until early 2012 probably, but I wanted to get the word out just so interested people can start discussing it with me. :)

Mirrored from annathepiper.org.

Comments

[framlingem.livejournal.com]

Re: St. John's, I stayed at the ABBA Inn once (yes. The owners are Swedish.) It's pretty handy for things and is absolutely charming, and the breakfast was brilliant. Now I stay at the Youth Hostel, which is even handier for things and also even cheaper - it has private rooms, kitchen and laundry facilities and free wi-fi, and assuming that festival is the folk festival, the hostel is literally right around the corner from the park it's being held in.

In terms of interesting places, I'll be in Montreal, and would be happy to show you around both the city and the surrounding area!

[framlingem.livejournal.com]

I can also really recommend the Bear on the Lake guesthouse on Cape Breton. Bonfire pit, beach, fantastic people, kitchen, free wifi, guests get discounts on things like whalewatching tours, that sort of thing.

[annathepiper]

Sweet!

[annathepiper]

Awesome, re: St. John's! Early info like this will be excellent when Dara and I start formal planning. Right now I'm mostly just in the stage of information-gathering (and waiting for the festival website to update with next year's info, which is what has to happen first before any formal plans are made!).

Re: Montreal, yay! Our friend cow is very fond of Montreal and has also offered to meet us there, but other sources of info and other people to meet would rock. Especially if there are any conveniently timed shows by Le Vent du Nord or La Volee d'Castors, because if there are, we are TOTALLY stopping in Quebec. :D

[marzipan-pig.livejournal.com]

Who hoo that sounds really fun!

Even taking a trip down to LA and then over to Arizona was really a lot of fun for me. Will you be able to get one of the cute little sleeper cars, they are super cool.

[annathepiper]

cow is very much advising us to pony up for sleeper cars on the trip, yeah. :)

[xpioti.livejournal.com]

I don't know diddly about Newfoundland, other than "visit the Grenfell museum"! It's all about my great-grandfather, and I'm absurdly proud to be related to him. Nowhere near as cool or amazing as him, but he was amazingly cool.

[annathepiper]

Oh, I didn't know you had Newfoundland descent! Right on! :) Thanks for the tip, we'll totally have to look for that museum.

[angelina-zooma.livejournal.com]

This sounds like fun!! I've been wanting to go to that festival too but so far just haven't actually made any plans for it. Maybe in a year or two.

So! I can potentially give you some tips on places to visit between Thunder Bay ON and St. John's NFLD.. sadly I haven't really seen the whole other half of my country.

A couple years ago I took a road trip with my sister, 1 week driving out to NFLD, one week on the Island (where we covered pretty much the whole thing) so I can probably think up some recommendations on spots along the way as well (Old Quebec City is gorgeous, highly recommend a stop there!)

If you're spending any time in Ontario I can either help with suggestions for here, or play tour guide! :) I'm right next to Niagara Falls so if you're stopping there let me know.

As for NFLD itself, if you've got the time and can rent a car, seeing the rest of the Island outside of St. John's is also fantastic! It's a whole other world out there, and some of the scenery (like Gross Morne park) will blow you away!

As for staying in St. John's we opted for camping and staying at a long term stay type hotel. The hotel was handy because it was pretty much like renting an apartment but it wasn't very pretty. That and we were trying to make the trip as cheap as possible.

[annathepiper]

Belated: thanks very much for chiming in on this. It's still early yet for solarbird and I to plan the trip, but it'll be very helpful to me to be able to come back to ths post later and see these comments! :)