Canada Travel Guide: Entry Rules, Money, Transit and What to Know Before You Go

If you are a visa-exempt national travelling to or transiting through Canada by air, you need an Electronic Travel Authorization (eTA) before boarding your flight. As confirmed directly on the official government portal at canada.ca, the application costs CAN$7 and is non-refundable. The process is handled entirely online and requires a valid passport, a credit or debit card, and an email address. Most applications are approved within minutes, though completing it well before arriving at the airport remains sensible.

Once issued, an eTA remains valid for five years or until your passport expires, whichever comes sooner. During that validity window, you can enter Canada an unlimited number of times, with each individual stay lasting up to six months. Crucially, the eTA is only required for air travel; if you enter Canada by land or sea, you do not need an eTA, though you still require a valid passport. Note that dual Canadian citizens cannot use an eTA and must travel on a valid Canadian passport.

The domestic currency is the Canadian Dollar (CAD), and payment card acceptance across the country is near-universal. Contactless tap payments are accepted almost everywhere you go, including inside taxis and at automated vending machines, typically up to a cap of roughly CAD$250 per tap before a PIN entry is prompted. Even with widespread card terminals, carrying a modest reserve of physical cash remains useful for specific situations like small rural vendors, local farmers' markets, or coin-operated laundry facilities.

Tipping in Canada functions as a drifting cultural norm rather than a rigid statutory rule. While roughly 15% has traditionally served as the baseline for average sit-down restaurant service, 18% to 20% has increasingly become the de facto norm for seated dining. Payment terminals frequently prompt default suggestions at higher percentages, such as 18%, 20%, or 25%, but you can always enter a custom amount, select a lower percentage, or decline. At counter-service venues, tipping remains entirely optional, and declining the prompt is not considered rude.

Given the sheer physical scale of Canada, how you travel depends heavily on the distance between your destinations. VIA Rail operates the busy Quebec City-Windsor Corridor, providing frequent daily train departures that make regional journeys between major eastern population centres practical and straightforward. VIA Rail also runs classic long-haul routes, including The Canadian between Toronto and Vancouver and the overnight Ocean between Montreal and Halifax. However, cross-country train journeys are multi-day scenic voyages rather than rapid transit solutions, reflecting the enormous distances involved.

Because of Canada's immense geographic expanse, booking domestic flights represents the only realistic way to connect multi-region itineraries within a normal holiday timeframe. For urban transport once you arrive, app-based ride-hailing services like Uber and Lyft are firmly established and widely available in major Canadian cities. Service becomes noticeably patchier in smaller towns and rural areas, where local taxis or rental vehicles are generally needed to get around reliably.

Everyday social interactions in Canada are governed by straightforward but deeply ingrained standards of public politeness. Canadians queue strictly in shops, transit hubs, and ticket lines; jumping ahead or cutting into a queue is considered a genuine social offense. Respecting personal space is widely valued, as are small courtesies such as holding doors open for others and saying 'please,' 'thank you,' and 'sorry' frequently throughout the day during routine daily exchanges.

Navigating language conventions in Quebec requires mindful cultural awareness. It is considered good etiquette to initiate any interaction with 'Bonjour'—or 'Bonjour/Hi' in Montreal—rather than simply assuming English. While Montreal is broadly bilingual and comfortable for English-speaking visitors within its tourist infrastructure, rural Quebec functions predominantly in French. Outside major centres, service staff and locals may have uneven English fluency, so making an effort with basic French greetings is both appreciated and courteous.

Because climatic conditions vary drastically from coast to coast, there is no single nationwide best time to visit Canada. Along British Columbia's coastal West, temperatures remain relatively mild year-round, featuring warm, dry weather during peak summer in July and August alongside mild, wet, rain-heavy winters. For the Canadian Rockies, the optimal window splits between June to September for mountain hiking and December to March for winter skiing. Across the Prairies and continental interior, travellers experience the country's most extreme seasonal swings, marked by intensely hot summers and very cold winters.

In Ontario and Quebec, May through October offers the best conditions for urban sightseeing, outdoor festivals, and autumn foliage. Atlantic Canada is generally best visited between June and September, when milder weather arrives alongside opportunities for iceberg viewing and whale watching. Further north, the prime seasons divide between February to April for northern lights viewing and June to August for 24-hour daylight and wildlife observation. Nationally, January is typically the coldest and snowiest month, while shoulder seasons in April to May and September to October offer fewer crowds.

Canada sits at the lowest domestic risk tier from the perspective of foreign governments, with an international consensus baseline that simply advises visitors to take normal precautions. It is a peaceful, low-risk destination where travellers do not face the complex travel advisories or elevated urban cautions common to many other international regions. Standard everyday common sense while travelling in cities and outdoors is all that is typically required.

The primary environmental variable to keep in mind is the summer wildfire season, which presents a real seasonal consideration for parts of the country depending on the specific region. If you are planning to travel during summer months, checking regional environmental updates and air quality conditions before and during your stay is sensible practice, rather than treating it as an omnipresent or year-round safety hazard.