2 Days in Toronto and Beyond
Two Days Isn’t Enough to See Toronto, So Don’t Try. See Canada Instead.
Two days spent chasing every museum and tower downtown gets you a tired, half-finished checklist. Two days spent doing Toronto’s arrival ritual properly, then getting on a train out of the province, gets you an actual “I’ve been to Canada” story instead of just “I’ve been to one big city.” That’s the trade this itinerary makes.
| Day | Focus | Getting there |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Union Station, Queen’s Park, Hockey Hall of Fame | UP Express, 25 min from Pearson |
| 2 | Kingston, out and back | VIA Rail, 2 to 2.5 hrs each way, 60-140 CAD |
Book these before you go
- VIA Rail’s Kingston seats climb fastest on Friday afternoon and Sunday evening trains, book weeks ahead for the low end of that 60-140 CAD range.
- Check downtown rates on Booking.com before picking a hotel near Union.
Day 1: Land, orient, meet the country before you meet the city
UP Express gets you from Pearson to Union Station in about 25 minutes, adult fare 12.35 CAD cash or 9.25 CAD with a PRESTO card, seniors half price, kids under 12 free. It runs every 15 minutes, so don’t let anyone at the curb talk you into a 60-70 CAD flat-rate taxi through traffic. Drop your bags downtown near Union; you’ll want the short walk to the platform tomorrow.
Spend twenty minutes in Union Station’s Great Hall before you go anywhere else. It’s a Beaux-Arts rail palace built jointly by Canadian National and Canadian Pacific in the 1920s, and this whole trip runs on the network it anchors. From there, walk up to Queen’s Park, the Ontario Legislative Building, free to view from outside, and worth the ten minutes precisely because it’s a provincial legislature, not the national one. Toronto is not Canada’s capital, that’s Ottawa, chosen in 1857 as a compromise between four rival cities, and Queen’s Park is the visible proof of the smaller job Toronto actually holds.
Afternoon: the Hockey Hall of Fame, inside Brookfield Place, keeps the real Stanley Cup on display, not a replica, and it’s a genuinely well-built museum whether or not you follow the sport. Budget 45 CAD adult admission and about two hours. Dinner downtown, and an early night, because tomorrow starts with a train, not a hotel breakfast.
Day 2: Kingston, out and back
Board an early VIA train to Kingston, roughly two to two and a half hours each way, fares commonly 60-140 CAD depending how far ahead you booked (book now if you haven’t, VIA prices climb the way airline fares do). Kingston is a proper small Ontario city built around Fort Henry and the start of the Thousand Islands, small enough to cover on foot in an afternoon: the old limestone downtown, the waterfront, lunch somewhere on Princess Street, or book a Kingston day tour if you’d rather have the walking route planned for you. This is one rail day, not a rushed correction, treat it as the actual point of the trip rather than an add-on to Toronto.
Catch an evening train back to Union, and if there’s time before your flight or the next leg of your trip, that’s it, you’ve done more of Canada in two days than most week-long itineraries manage by staying inside the city limits.
Before you go
Loonies and toonies (the one- and two-dollar coins) will be in your pocket within the hour of landing, and Canadian dollars aren’t the same as US dollars despite the shared symbol, so check the exchange rate rather than assuming parity. Canada has been officially bilingual at the federal level since 1969, which is why airport and rail signage runs in English and French even though Toronto itself operates almost entirely in English. The Kingston leg is domestic rail, not a border crossing, no passport needed, just a photo ID if VIA staff ask. If two days leaves you wanting more of the corridor, the 3-day version adds a proper Toronto-as-Canada deep dive on top of this same plan, and the full guide breaks down the longer Ottawa and Montreal legs this short trip doesn’t have room for.