12ish things to do in Toronto

Hello everyone. As you may know every time that my family or friends come to visit Toronto I’m their tourist guide. I love to go around the city and showing people all my favourite places, that’s why on today’s post I list some of the highlights of my preference that I would recommend you to see.

*There are some places that you can only visit during summer due Toronto’s or Canada’s crazy weather and some places have different activities in different seasons.

1) Saint Lawrence market

I actually visit this place at least twice a week, It is a market where you can find a huge variety of products like fruit and vegetables and some places to eat, in fact my favourite Italian place is located in that same market. They also have a great Chinese place, great coffee and some delicious bakery to die for. It is located near my college and their food is fairly healthy, since I go there often I have places where I always buy certain products, so they know my by name, I know theirs, and they make me feel like I’m visiting a friend when I go there. I highly recommend you to go, no matter the weather and try the Italian place from the first floor, their tomato sauce is the best 🙂

2) China Town/Kensington Market

If you want to buy souvenirs this is the place to go, some of the things that you can buy as presents for you loves ones around the city actually come from here and they sell them in more touristic places in higher prices, so remember to go to this place before you go back home.

On kensington Market you can also have great hamburgers and gelato in some local places which are very small restaurant/cafes but very cozy.The only thing is that going there with bad weather could be a challenge, specially when snowing, but you could find wonderful little places in there 🙂

3) Harbourfront and Toronto Island (Centre Island specifically)

I won’t recommend you to go there during winter even though there are some winter activities like ice skiing because since is next to the lake it gets very very cold but with good weather is fantastic to walk around, you can even find some fairs where you can buy craft things.

From the centre Island you can get, in my opinion,the best view of Toronto, you can see the whole skyline of the city, there are also restaurants, bars and bikes rentals and a beach if you want to go swim.                                                                                                                     

This is my go to place when is too hot since there is a wonderful breeze that help you deal with the heat and it is also a place where I go to relax and think, actually thinking about it, I must say it is my favourite place to go, you have to pay a small fair to go to the ferry located in the Harbourfront but it is totally worth it.

4) CN Tower

The iconic CN Tower, you can also get a great view of the city but if you are like me and you don’t like highs that much you might not want to go there, they even have a place with glass floor where I can’t even step in, too much vertigo. I rather watch the tower from the distant at night when it is cover by lights of different colours or where you can take one of the iconic pictures of you below the tower.                                                                                     

You can also go to a restaurant in there, it’s quite pricey specially if you are a student like me but again good view.

5) Ripley’s Aquarium

Amazing place to go, no matter the season, great place, a lot of things to watch, I even feel like inside a movie in some places specially with the fluorescent jellyfishes.                           

There is a part that you are like in a dome surrounded with sharks, It’s scary but fascinating at the same time 🙂

6) The ROM (Royal Ontario Museum)  – AGO (Art Gallery of Ontario)

It put those two together because some people like art, some people artifacts and history and some people like both.

Great places to visit not only once since you always have something new to see and sometimes you can attend to different activities for example, in the ROM museum they have some parties every Friday night or the AGO shows some art expositions for a limited amount of time.

In my opinion if you have time, go to both, if you don’t, whichever you pick you’ll see great things in.

This is my second favourite place to go. It’s one of the oldest part of Toronto and yo can see the contrast between the new and the old.

On winter, you have the Christmas market where you can eat different things and drink some hot chocolate and during the year you have some photo galleries and great places to go.

I really love a place where they sell milkshakes made from craft chocolate. You can also try over there something called bierschnaps which is basically distilled beer, drink that you can find only over there in Toronto and in some places in Europe (Germany mostly).

8) Nathan Phillips Square

Have you ever seen the typical picture of the letters of Toronto? This is the place where you can find them and where you can go ice skiing too during winter.                                         

The letters of Toronto are located in the middle of the new and the old city hall and it’s blocks away of two of the attractions that I’ll talk about.

9) Eaton Centre

This is the biggest mall that I ever been in, it’s a beautiful place even though I don’t feel very comfortable in crowded places and I don’t really shop very often and when I do I go to the closest thing from home.                                                                                                         

As a tourist though, you should go there and take a look, there are some stores that you won’t find anywhere else near the city and it is a great activity when it is freezing outside or when the streets feel like hell is summer. Toronto has some weird weather so be prepared for everything, you could see the 4 seasons in one day 😅

10) Dundas Square

Our little Times Square, surrounded by huge screens, near a cinema and where you can see some great street performances, food festivals and if you are lucky you can see some free concerts.

11) Go to a game

If you like sports you can go to a hockey, basketball, baseball and even Football (Soccer) games.

Some tickets are quite cheap and some of them are quite pricey everything depends on who are you going to watch play and when. The whole experience is amazing, not only the game itself but the spectacle that they built to make you enjoy the experience as much as you can

12) Get lost in the city and do something different

There are other places like Canada’s wonderland, the Vaughan Mills outlet or Casa Loma which are other touristic places. The reason why I left them out is that I didn’t want to make the list that big and because they are not places that I usually frequent. You may like them though so consider them when making your to-do-list.

My final advice is that since we all have different experience in this city, with my 3 and a half years experience living in this wonderful city is that every day, you could find something amazing to do, it’s up to you to find it.                                                               

That’s why, I highly recommend to you is to search for restaurant of food that you’ve never eaten before. Get out of your hotel or the place where you are staying and if the weather is nice, walk on a straight line so you don’t get lost, and when you see something that caught your attention, go and check it out, or if you see a restaurant that sell a kind of food that you’ve never had heard before go and eat inside. You don’t have much to lose. You might discover your new favourite food or get a new anecdote of that place you didn’t like.

What ever you do, please do me a favour and don’t stay in the hotel too long and please don’t go and try to find the food from your home country. Firstly it will be more expensive than back home and there is a high chance that it won’t taste the same.                                               

Toronto is a wonderful city and it is up to you to have a great or a not so great experience, it’s a city where you can find and do almost everything, take advantage of that and you’ll have and unforgettable time in here, I hope this list help you a little bit when thinking what to do in here 🙂

I hope you enjoy today’s post, If you have any place that I haven’t mentioned and you think people will love to hear about, please leave it in the comments, I wish you all a great weekend and write you next time 😁