Me and my family are moving to Waterloo from Edmonton and I was wondering if anyone knows approx how long it takes to travel through Canada and not the united States.
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Welcome to the SDMB, Karma12.
The About This Message Board forum is for questions about the message board itself, like posting problems, questions about rules, etc.
Since your question is factual, it belongs in our General Questions forum.
Moving thread from About This Message Board to General Questions.
I have family in Ontario so I know that part of Canada reasonably well. I’ve never driven out west though.
Google maps kept wanting to take me through the US on a route that it said would take about 32 hours with no traffic. I had a hard time forcing Google to take a purely Canadian route. I got it to mostly follow the trans-Canadian highway with a few stupid detours and it ended up at about 40 hours of driving time. That’s probably in the right ballpark, so I didn’t bother trying to make its route more accurate.
Mapquest at least gave me the option for an all-Canada route, and that came up as 36 hours of driving time.
Edmonton to Winnipeg - about 14 hours? Winnipeg to Thunder Bay, 7 to 8 hours. To Sault Ste Marie, another 7 or 8. To Toronto about 8; and then to Waterloo another hour or two.
If weather is bad, or in winter, allow more time, particularly north of Superior where the roads are up-and-down and it can get icy or blowing snow can impede visibility.
there are stretches, like Wawa to Sault, where you can go almost two hours between gas stations, especially after business hours. Don’t skip filling up when you reach below half full. It’s mostly two-lane highway north of Superior, but it’s been years since I drove it and I recall they were trying to add lots of passing lanes and slow truck lanes on hills. If you take hwy 11 from Nipigon instead of 17 north of Superior it’s flatter, straighter, less hilly, but adds an extra hour. Probably better though if road conditions will be bad.
You’re looking at 33-35 hours of driving time if you stay on the Trans-Canada to Sudbury then head south to Toronto and on the Waterloo.
Any reason you want to stay in Canada? You could probably shave some time off by crossing into Michigan at Sault St. Marie then back to Canada at Sarnia.
Also, depending on when you travel there is a ferry from Manitoulin Island to Tobermory on the Bruce Peninsula… not sure if it would save time but definitely a scenic route.
Save even more by crossing into USA south of Winnipeg and taking Hwy 2 through then across Mackinack Bridge to Sarnia; or take interstates through Fargo, Chicago and Detroit which is straight flat divided highway through populated areas.
If the OP is moving house, though, entering and exiting the States may not be worth the hassle.
If you’re travelling during the summer, taking Highway 6 south from Espanola and crossing Georgian Bay on the Ferry will cut off a lot of driving time.
That’s what I thought but couldn’t get mapquest or google maps to use the ferry for the route.
A friend and I drove direct from Waterloo to Saskatoon through the all-Canada route and it took about 32+ hours (Google Maps suggests it should have taken 30, but we had to stop for food/gas/etc. a few times).