March Break is the one silver lining amidst winter midterms and expired Valentine’s Day candy. The week-long holiday breaks the monotony of classes and snow drifts, but finding somewhere inexpensive can make your holiday travels downright difficult. We asked students around campus their recommended destinations, and hopefully you’ll find a comfortable and local place to celebrate spring without draining your wallets.
Old Québec
What they’ve got: a beautifully niche city, the Old Québec district of Québec City is particularly antique in it’s aesthetic. With it’s historic chapels and cathedrals, large malls and combination of walking and carriage tours, Old Québec lives up to it’s title as a world heritage treasure. Josie Perdue always saw the district as “like a tiny little village.” Not to mention there are plenty of bars and the legal drinking age is 18.
Distance: The shortest route from Fredericton to Old Québec is about 588 kilometers, approximately five and a half hours away.
Cost: Tickets for a roundtrip by bus are about $200 and hotels can be expensive. But finding cheap, rentable apartments at airbnb.com is a more viable option. Driving with friends or renting a car if you don’t have one and splitting gas will save you lots of money.
Halifax
What they’ve got: Halifax offers a wide array of art centers, museums and restaurants to keep people occupied. They have a beautiful mall and an interesting downtown with cool bars as well as big attractions like the Halifax Planetarium and Art Gallery of Nova Scotia. Also, there are plenty of snowshoeing trails, movie cinemas and board game cafés to explore. As put by first-year student Molly Brewer, “if you want to get to a really big city you kind of have to go out West, and then it just get’s increasingly expensive.” With Halifax, you can have the beauty of a large city with a low price.
Distance: about 436 km if you plan on travelling by road.
Cost: Just over $100 for a roundtrip bus ticket from Fredericton to Halifax. But, again, if you don’t have a car you can rent a car and split costs with friends. Or you can post an ad in kijiji.ca or Facebook for a drive.
Cape Breton
What they’ve got: Cape Breton is great for their ski slopes, national parks, museums and even concert venues. Jay Chang, a third-year student, mentioned the landscapes were one of the prettiest he’d ever heard of. The island also brims with Mi’kmaw, French Acadian and Gaelic cultures.
Distance: about 600 km, or a six-and-a-half-hour drive by car. Buses could take anywhere up to 11 hours, so we’d recommend riding early (you can always sleep on the way there).
Cost: a bus ticket will cost between $105 – $170 and airbnb.com prices for apartments or rooms vary.
Saint John
What they’ve got: A plethora of museums, art galleries, parks, historical sites, and the beautiful paper mills, if you’re into that sort of thing. Second-year student Ben Durley recommends uptown Saint John for those who have yet to experience it. “You’re better off uptown because it’s the oldest part of Canada and there’s so much historical significance, it’s unreal.”
Distance: about 110 km, or just over an hour drive.
Cost: Just under about $50 for a roundtrip.
