Cape Breton Highlands National Park, Nova Scotia

I only discovered Cape Breton Highlands because from time to time I google things like “best RV road trip Canada” and somewhere along the way, this spot popped up on my potential-visit list. Situated on the northwest tip of Nova Scotia, six hours from Halifax and a several-day drive from any major city, it takes a real commitment to reach this place. But, like all the rave reviews I read online, we too quickly discovered the appeal.

A scenic drive called the Cabot Trail circles the park and offers access to many of the best things to see and do. As we came around the first scenic bend, oohing and aahing at the views, Eli chimed in with a perfect, “Eat your heart out, California Route One.”

We spent two nights each in two spots along the trail to explore the park. Our first outpost was a campground in Ingonish, on the park’s east side, which offered access to a remote and beautiful beach.

Eli took some that first afternoon to explore by way of a run and came back with glowing reviews and a whole lot of photos.

Our full day in Ingonish, we explored the east side of the park, taking a beautiful walk out to White Point before renting kayaks and paddling around one of the areas many small bays.

Then, we did a short hop to the west side of the island, camping in a community called Cheticamp.

Here, again, Eli did another significant trail run, noting that the Canada tourism authority managed to get one of their red adirondack chairs up to the top of the trail (this is a thing – you can read about it).

The kids and I discovered two delights in town – a surprisingly good ice cream stand attached to a joint named Mr. Chicken and a Canadian Dollar Store (Ben’s most favorite attraction) with an ‘eveything must go’ half-off sale that made Ben absolutely bananas with joy.  

Together, we hiked the skyline trail which offers some of the best views of the Cabot Trail roadway twisting and turning along the coast.

As it turns out, this corner of Nova Scotia is also famous for whale watching. Several species of whales convene here each summer and tour companies with names like “guaranteedwhales.com” and “wepromiseyouwhales.com” promote their tour options all along the coast. To brush up on our knowledge, we stopped in at the Whale Interpretive Center, a small but interesting museum about the species who inhabit the area.

Our original whale watch trip ended up cancelled due to high winds, so we ended up delaying our departure from Cape Breton to give whale watching one more shot. This gamble ended up delivering in three ways.

First, we did get our whales! We spent a few minutes bobbing around in the waters with a pod of pilot whales who, our guide told us, was also their first spotting of this particular species of whale this season. Pilot whales are small-ish whales and there were several moms and calves in the group. It was astonishingly cool.

Second, a family that had been our next-door neighbor in our campground in Peggy’s Cove several days earlier (who had a cutie five year old son as well as a cutie puppy who liked Toby more than Toby liked him) had booked the same tour. So, we got the chance to spend a few hours chatting with them as the boat steadily made its way to the whales’ last known location.

And, third, after several days hoping, but not seeing, any moose, Ben – the eagle eyed wildlife spotter – saw one on the drive to the boat and we were able to spend a few minutes admiring this young buck.

As with many of the places we’ve visited, we could have easily spent more time leaning in to the beauty of this place and taking advantage of the restorative beauty of nature. But, we treated ourselves to pizza on our last evening in the area and bid this spot farewell.