Best Ontario Day Trips from Toronto by GO Train

Great Ontario destinations you can visit from Toronto in a day — no car needed.

I love my city, but I also enjoy day trips from Toronto to go see something different. But I don’t drive. If you are in the same boat and are looking for ideas, I have good news.

Some of Southern Ontario’s best small cities and coolest festivals are just one train ride away from downtown’s Union Station. You don’t need a car, and you don’t need to spend much: Go Transit offers a $10 all-you-can-ride pass on weekends, so that’s just $5 each way — to a natural wonder of the world, an indie art crawl, a delicious Pan-Asian night market and more.  (Other types of passes exist on weekdays, also affordable.)

Take a look at the map of the Go Transit system and see for yourself. Here is the Go Transit official website with a trip planner and fare info. Purchase an e-pass here.

Why take Go Transit

Go Transit is a Canadian-owned and operated public transit system serving commuters in the Golden Horseshoe region of Ontario. But travellers can use it, too. One of my favourite micro adventures is getting on the Go for a day trip from Toronto to see friends, check out a new museum or attend a concert. I’ve also used the Go system plus Toronto’s own TTC to go hiking.

And cyclists rejoice: there are bike racks on all buses (max two bikes, first come first served) and dedicated space for bikes on all Go trains.

It’s not without its quirks. The Go schedule is built primarily for workers coming into Toronto on business, so some routes run better in one direction than the other. And weekend construction closures do pop up — always check the website in advance. You can use the Trip Planner to filter by direct trains only (my personal preference) but sometimes transferring to a bus is a better option. And both are included with your e-pass. Washrooms and wifi on board.

For the price of a fancy matcha iced latte you can spend a full day somewhere that feels genuinely far from Toronto without ever needing to park a car.

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Here are my Top Five Day Trips from Toronto using Go Transit

Niagara Falls: Tourist for the Day

Time from Downtown: 140 minutes on direct GO Train, which runs year round but has more departures on weekends. (During the week you may need to transfer to a GO Bus at Burlington instead of a direct train.)

Niagara Falls is obviously the biggest and best of the day trips from Toronto. A genuine wonder of the world, and worth every bit of the crowds and the two-and-a-half-hour train ride. Going to Niagara Falls on the Go train can be as little as $10 return with the weekend day pass, but a GO+WEGO Combo Ticket is a good investment: it bundles your round-trip GO train fare with unlimited access to Niagara’s hop-on-hop-off bus system that gets you from the GO station (about 2 km from the actual falls) to all the main attractions. And there are so many attractions. See the falls (a must) and then your only problem is deciding what to pack into one day and night. Here are some of my faves.

Things to do in Niagara Falls

• Journey Behind the Falls is the classic way to see the falls from a whole new vantage point: below and behind.
• Niagara Parks Power Station is an atmospheric former hydroelectric plant with an underground tunnel 180 feet below ground that leads to a stunning lookout beneath the falls. Read more about why I love the Power Station and its night tour.
• Niagara Falls Butterfly Conservatory is one of my favourite things to do, so pretty!
• Clifton Hill — the unapologetic “Street of Fun,” an amusement strip of arcades, haunted houses, mini-golf, and other cheesy carney chaos.
• Helicopter tours, boat tours, ziplining — there is plenty for thrill seekers.

Where to eat: Honestly, you’re going to eat junk here, and that’s part of the experience — fudge, fries, the works. For a memorable sit-down meal, Table Rock House Restaurant serves Canadian cuisine using local ingredients, with beautiful views of the falls. I also recommend Corso Italian Kitchen and Winebar, located in the Hilton at Fallsview casino: their family-style, prix-fixed dinner with endless refills is such excellent quality and such good value. And for something unique, make the little trek to the Flying Saucer, a retro alien-themed diner. (Not served by WeGo, sadly, but worth the Uber, imo!)

Special occasions:

• Canada Day (July 1) fireworks over the Falls are always a spectacle
• Niagara Icewine Festival in January. Really, winter is worth it.
• Honestly, though — it’s fun any time of year. That’s kind of the whole point of this one.

Want to stay overnight? Read my list of recommended hotels in Niagara Falls.

Hamilton: Arts & Culture

Time from Downtown: 65–80 minutes on a direct Lakeshore West train to either West Harbour GO or Hamilton GO Centre.

Hamilton is nicknamed Steeltown for its legacy as an industrial powerhouse. (You will still see – and smell – the smokestacks as you approach.) But affordable rent and real estate has drawn and nurtured many artists too. This means there’s a strong scene for entertainment and cultural events, like their monthly art crawl and music festivals. Hamilton is one of the easiest day trips from Toronto on Go transit, with trains running into the night, and these top spots are within a 30-minute walk of a Go Station. (Or grab a SoBi bike share to get around the core.) Keep an eye out for the many murals on buildings all over the city while you wander.

Things to do in Hamilton

• Art Gallery of Hamilton is the oldest and largest art museum in Southern Ontario, with more than 11,000 works from painters like Alex Colville, Emily Carr and the Group of Seven, plus modern art like Kim Adams’ Bruegel-Bosch Bus, an Instagrammable 1960s VW filled with mixed-media objects. 123 King St W. Open Thursday to Sunday.
• Art Crawl transforms James Street North into a monthly street party — independent galleries and art studios stay open late the second Friday of the month. A stretch of the street is closed to cars May–October, with vendors and a real summer festival vibe.
• Workers Arts & Heritage Centre is a unique exhibition space devoted to art and objects that highlight the history and importance of labour and social justice. Free. 51 Stuart Street. Wednesday to Saturday.
• Check out the event listings at the Cotton Factory, a former cotton mill built in 1900 that’s home to dozens of artist studios. It’s a bit further from the Go stations but they often host art exhibitions or workshops worth going out of your way. 270 Sherman Avenue
• Thursday evenings in the summer, there is free live jazz and blues music at West Harbour pier. (Which also boasts a popular outdoor skating rink – roller skating in summer, ice skating in winter.)
• For all your Hamilton live concert listings and news, see the Hamilton Live substack by longtime Pitchfork contributor and all-around music expert Stuart Berman. (I’ve had a lot of fun seeing shows at the intimate Mills Hardware club.)
• Dundurn Castle, a bonafide National Historic Site, offers guided tours of its Italianate-style villa built in the 1830’s and is a top attraction in Hamilton for history lovers. Also, lovely gardens. 610 York Blvd. Tuesday to Sunday from 12pm to 4pm.
• Goth friends: keep walking along the Harvey Park waterfront trail to the atmospheric Hamilton Cemetery, which has a marked mass grave from the 1832–33 cholera epidemic.

Where to Eat: James Street North is the main strip for food. Mulberry House café is the local fave, Cowabunga serves award-winning pizza, Chocolate on James has your sweet treats,and Merit is a local brewery. The Hamilton Farmers’ Market has been operating since 1837 and brings together up to 50 local vendors of cheese, baked goods and other delicious options for your picnic and snacking needs. Wednesday to Saturday, to 5pm

Special occasions:

• FrancoFEST Hamilton, one of the largest Francophone festivals in Ontario, happens at Gage Park for three days in June with free concerts, workshops, and cultural programming celebrating the Franco-Ontarian community
• Supercrawl is Hamilton’s coolest free music and arts festival, with super musical line-ups, fashion, theatre, dance and more taking over James St in September.
• Festival of Friends calls itself Canada’s largest free outdoor music and arts festival, held each summer in Gage Park for the past 50 years!
• Hamilton Fringe Festival brings hundreds of performances of comedy, theatre, dance, music, and film to downtown venues over 10+ days, with many free outdoor shows.

Want to stay overnight? I’m a fan of Hampton Inns and there’s one in central Hamilton. Check availability at Hampton Inn by Hilton Hamilton.

Markham: Pan-Asian Food Crawl

Time from Downtown: About 35–45 minutes on the Stouffville line to Milliken GO, with very frequent departures day and night.

I would not normally recommend a day trip to the mall, except Markham’s malls are nothing like what you find in Toronto. This is a distinct and diverse city — nearly half its population identifies as Chinese, with South Asian, Filipino, Korean, and Sri Lankan communities close behind. It’s mall food courts are places to gather and have stood the test of time. So if you want to taste the world of Asian cuisines all in one place, it’s worth the easy Go train ride to eat your way through Pacific Mall and First Markham Place.

Things to do in Markham

Eat at Pacific Mall’s Heritage Town food court. Hand-pulled Sichuan noodles, Shanghai-style soup dumplings, Chongqing hot-and-sour noodles, and a dozen-plus bubble tea shops. Disclaimer, that this mall isn’t the bustling hot spot it once was. Crackdowns on counterfeit goods has left more empty storefronts. But it’s literally across the street from the Go Station, and the street food stalls still get rave reviews, so a great place to start a day trip to Markham.

Eat even more at First Markham Place. An uber ride or local transit bus away from the Go station, First Markham Place has a wider range of cuisines: Thai, Filipino, Korean, and Vietnamese alongside Chinese. More food court action or sit-down in one of the more than 20 restaurants. Hey Noodles offers “unlimited free noodle refills” of their Xiao Mian bowls; Kaka offers all-you-can-eat sushi. I’m sorry, I know you’ve been eating all day but if you like a challenge….

Note for vegetarians: most of the standout food court stalls are meat- or seafood-based, but just outside the Pacific Mall is Graceful Vegetarian Restaurant and Lotus Vegetarian Restaurant is a 10-minute bus ride away, both Chinese Buddhist vegetarian spots in Markham.

Shopping for K-Beauty at Artitaum. This Korean cosmetics and skincare store at First Markham place carries brands like Laneige, Sulwhasoo, Innisfree, Etude, IOPE, and Mamonde.

Spa time at Go Place. This spa is open 24 hours. For real. A Korean-style jjimjilbang with all the saunas, jacuzzies, rest and relaxation zones you could want after a full day. Right next First Markham Place mall.

Special occasions:

• Lunar New Year at Pacific Mall. Lion dance performances weave door-to-door through the mall to bless individual businesses, plus giveaways and sidewalk sales for shoppers.
• Taste of Asia. One of the largest free Asian street festivals in Canada, held right at Kennedy & Steeles by Pacific Mall in mid-June for three days.
• DTM Food Fest This one is in Downtown Markham, so you’ll need to grab a cab. Each July, a global food alley with live music and K-pop performances.

Want to stay overnight? You can do it at Go Place spa! Or for a hotel in Markham, one again there is a Hampton Inn. Check availability at the Hampton Inn and Suites by Hilton Markham.

Rouge Hill: The Great Outdoors

Time from Downtown: About 30 minutes on the Lakeshore East line to Rouge Hill GO, plus a TTC bus connection to reach the trailheads.

Rouge National Urban Park is one of the largest urban parks in North America, 80 square kilometres of forest, wetland and working farmland sprawling over Scarborough. Much of this requires a car to visit from downtown Toronto. But the south end of the park, near the Twyn Rivers Day Use Area, is accessible via Go Train to Rouge Hill station, then TTC public transit. It’s a fantastic day trip for hikers, birdwatchers, or anyone looking to disconnect and spend time in nature.

Things to do in Rouge

• Glen Eagles Vista Trail is a short, flat, 600-metre trail with views over the Rouge River and Little Rouge Creek valleys and a geologically significant bluff. Wheelchair and stroller accessible too.
• Orchard Trail, a 2-km walk through forest and meadow passes remnants of an early European settlement, including old orchards and a former mill site. Deer sightings are common at dawn or dusk.
• Vista Trail is an out-and-back hike to a two-level viewing platform overlooking the Rouge and Little Rouge Creek valleys. It no longer connects through to the Zoo area, so treat it as a there-and-back rather than a loop.

Where to Eat: Pack a picnic to bring with as there is no café or other food on-site or good food options nearby.

Special occasions: Fall colours in October are genuinely spectacular here — the mixed Carolinian forest along these trails puts on one of the better autumn displays in the GTA, and the Vista and Glen Eagles lookouts are prime vantage points to take it in.

Important note: Rouge Beach (usually a great beach option for Toronto), the Rouge Marsh, and a road connecting Vista Trail to the Toronto Zoo area are all currently closed for construction and restoration work. Access points in this park shift fairly often, so it’s worth checking Parks Canada’s Rouge National Urban Park website for current trail and closure bulletins before you go.

Guelph: Unique and Unusual

Time from Downtown: 70-90 minutes on the direct Kitchener-line train to Guelph Central GO.

Guelph has a genuinely odd streak for a city its size. Example: The Naked Fountain Family, a sculpture that scandalized conservative townsfolk when it was unveiled… and then, decades later, a body was found in it. (Nobody puts this on the tourism brochure.) So this is one is a day trip for those who enjoy unique and unusual things to do.

Things to do in Guelph:

• Art Gallery of Guelph + Donald Forster Sculpture Park — the gallery’s collection is anchored by Tom Thomson’s The Drive (1926), plus a substantial Inuit art collection. The adjoining sculpture park is the largest outdoor sculpture collection at any Canadian public gallery — 41 permanent installations, free, open dawn to dusk, including Evan Penny’s unsettling bronze Mask and cartoonist Seth’s Living Room Suite.
• Basilica of Our Lady Immaculate. This Gothic Revival church was built 1876–1888 by architect Joseph Connolly, designed to rival St. Peter’s in Rome but styled after Cologne Cathedral. A National Historic Site. A 1975 bylaw prohibits any new building from blocking the view of it — nothing in downtown Guelph is allowed to compete with the skyline it claimed a century ago. Free.
• A haunted pub crawl. A bootlegging history tour. Ghost hunting in a public school. In Guelph, walking tours have a different bent, and worth planning to be here at night for the spooky stories. Check out the tours and calendar at Guelph Urbex Tours.
• Guelph Civic Museum is housed in a converted 1960s convent right beside the Basilica. The regional museum boasts 30,000+ artifacts spanning Guelph’s history from its Indigenous roots through 20th-century development, plus rotating art and history exhibits and occasional live music events.
• Browse books (including local Guelph authors) while enjoying a glass of wine at The Bookshelf, which is also a cinema.

Where to Eat in Guelph

Clustered around St. George’s Square downtown are many cozey cafes. Miijidaa Café + Bistro uses Indigenous ingredients and techniques (the name means “let’s eat” in Ojibwe) plus strong vegetarian options; Baker Street Station is a gastropub in a beautifully restored train station. For dinner, La Cucina Ristorante serves authentic Italian and is popular with the locals.

Special occasions:

• Hillside Festival is one of the best music festivals I’ve ever been to in Canada. The line-up is creative in the best way, all over the map genre-wise but high quality. Genuine sustainability focuse (no single-use plastic, on-site dishwashing). And a good value. Held on Guelph Lake Island but free shuttle buses run between downtown Guelph Central Station and the festival site all weekend.
• Guelph Jazz Festival is free, downtown, always the weekend after Labour Day in September

Want to stay overnight? Western Hotel and Executive Suites has lovely character and charm and is conveniently located. Check availability here.

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about some great day trips from Toronto in Ontario using the Go Transit!

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