Road tripping the Provinces Ontario and Quebec!
You are thinking about a road trip in Canada, but you are unsure about the costs of it? I will tell you how much I spent on my rental car including gas and other fees!
The route
I started my journey in Montreal and made the following stops on my way around:
- Gananoque and 1000 islands national park *
- Kingston *
- Toronto
- Stratford*
- Niagara Falls
- Burlington
- Ottawa *
- Trois-Rivieres
- Quebec City *
- and back to Montreal
This nice little round is approx. 2350 km/1460 miles and I drove all this in 11 days.
* marking destinations I highly recommend
The car
I tend to look up different car rental companies and use different price comparison sites. For this trip I chose Car del Mar, which I had used before on a road trip through Portugal and another one through Northern Spain. This site gave me the cheapest car with the company Discount.
I usually just get the smallest and cheapest car, because I really don’t care what the car looks like and what size it is. On this trip I travelled by myself so I really didn’t need any bigger car.
They upgraded me at the pick-up station in Montreal so I got a Mazda 3 with automatic drive.
The Costs
Basic info
I rented the car for 11 days, all kilometers/miles included, including cross-overs to the USA.
Note: I was 21 at that time, meaning I had to pay some extra insurance costs. When renting a car it is cheaper for me to book through Car del Mar and not directly at the rental company, because they offer lower rates on that specific insurance.
I stayed at friends houses or at hostels, hotels and motels that mostly included the parking, if not it’ll cost you around 20 CAD per day to park.
Cost breakdown
- 330€ Basic rental costs including a no excess insurance policy that covers everything
- 5 CAD/ day for additional young driver insurance = 55 CAD
- 236.25 CAD Gas
- 30 CAD Parking
- 2350 km/1460 miles
Making a total of 552€ or approx. 785 CAD.
You could also look at it as 50.18€ or 71.36 CAD per day or
0.235€ per km or 0.537 CAD per mile.
Things to keep in mind
- Always get a no excess insurance policy. ALWAYS! You never know if something’s going to happen – even if you have driven safely all your life, when abroad you pay attention to different things and might be overwhelmed by the beauty of the landscape or the traffic itself. Then many times it is not even your fault when an accident happens, most insurances won’t cover your damages so please stay on the safe side.
- Get a satnav or use a satnav app on your phone or tablet (you may need to download the map before you can use it; and try it out before you hit the road)
- Before driving into a new adventure take a look at the car and how it looks. Look for bumps or scratches and let the staff know about it. This way you can avoid any inconvenient explanations when you return it.
- International Drivers Licence – I got one because it was stated in the terms of use that I must have this document additionally to my usual licence. They never checked it and it was a waste of money, 21,60€ and only valid for a year. I will not get a new one again.
- All the highways I used and that are on this route are free – thank you Canada!
Keep on travelling
Viki
