- [Gunnarolla] Canadian Geographic asked me
to talk about my favorite place in Canada
for their Our Country series,
and I have traveled to a lot of places in this country
from east to west, in the summer and in the winter,
through mountains, glaciers and ocean shores,
but there's one place that I visited recently
that was so unexpectedly charming
that it kind of reinforced for me
the value of letting go, traveling solo,
and appreciating what we have right here in Canada.
It's on the east coast, and it's not very exotic,
it's Moncton.
Moncton?
I know, of all the places I could talk about
today I'm gonna tell you
why Moncton was special to me.
A few months ago I decided to take a solo vacation.
Moncton is just a short inexpensive flight from Toronto.
When I told people I was going there
they were like, why would you go to Moncton?
But that just made me want to visit it more,
it made me want to find something there.
- [Air Stewardess] Ladies and gentlemen,
we have arrived at Moncton,
right now the time is 20 minutes past 12 here.
Moncton is a city in New Brunswick.
It's a university town, it's English and French speaking.
It's most popular tourist attraction
is probably Magnetic Hill
but I don't think people think of Moncton
as a tourist destination, it's more of an in between,
somewhere that you stop on your way
to Charlottetown or to Halifax.
I hadn't done much planning.
I'm really not a planner at all,
I just wanted to see what would happen once I got there.
I'm really lucky that wherever I go
I can meet someone who watches my YouTube videos
and these people become my local guides.
In Moncton I met up with Leez,
super sweet, very gracious,
and very proud to be from New Brunswick.
All the locals that I met in Moncton were really kind
and I think that's something we tend to overlook
about the East Coast.
It's got some of the most friendly people
I've met in my travels.
So the first reason you need
to get out to Moncton is the food.
Let me tell you I love seafood,
in fact I had just come back from a trip
through the Mediterranean with Contiki,
I had calamari every day.
But does anyone do seafood like the East Coast of Canada?
I went to a gastro pub called called Tide & Boar.
They had oysters, mussels, scallops, lobster.
I am salivating just thinking about it.
There was another restaurant we went to
called Catch 22, amazing food, very friendly service.
The food is fresh, local, inventive
and without any of the pretension
that you can often find in bigger cities.
Which leads me to the next reason to visit Moncton:
smaller cities have all these quirky things.
There's the laundromat that they turned into a cafe,
there's the CBC, our national public broadcaster
in the same building as a supermarket.
Donair chips,
actually this just kind of tastes like a burnt potato.
And there's a famous river
that they've affectionately dubbed The Chocolate River.
It's just really brown.
They sure like the color brown around here.
I love to drive, I love road trips.
Just being on the road and being in control
and having the freedom to stop
wherever you want to discover things.
That's another reason why I loved Moncton,
it's perfect for road trips.
Within 20 minutes to two hours
there were so many things to see.
I drove out to Bouctouche
and practically had the beach to myself.
I drove out to Shediac, again, amazing lobster.
Giant lobster, the world's biggest.
And one of the most beautiful sunsets I'd ever seen.
But what made me really fall in love
with Moncton and the surrounding area
was being able to observe the tide.
I drove out to Hopewell Rocks,
which is just on the upper reaches
of the Bay of Fundy, it's a beautiful spot
where you can observe the ocean
coming in and going out every day
and you can actually walk on the ocean floor.
I have never done that before.
I'm walking on the ocean floor.
This is ridiculous.
It was really weird to be able to walk
where just a few hours prior there had been the ocean.
At times it felt like I was on another planet.
I've become fascinated with the tide ever since that trip.
Alright, I'm kinda trapped with some rocks,
but it's beautiful at least.
I'm literally waiting for the ocean
to move that way, so I can walk.
It's great, everything's great.
There was one moment when I was completely alone
and I stepped a bit too far out onto the ocean floor
and my foot sank and I got stuck.
And you know, I would have had a ton of time
before the ocean came back, but in that moment I panicked
and I started thinking about how my phone was dead
and no one knew I was there,
and I was gonna be swept into the ocean.
It was just a funny reminder of my own mortality
and how insignificant we are on this huge planet.
I made it to the beach and I met a family from Vermont.
It felt like we were the only people
on Earth in that moment.
Mom told me about how she had taken a road trip
through Eastern Canada when she was younger
and how she wanted her daughter to experience that.
- [Mom] I came when I was 16 with some friends
and it just has always stuck in my mind,
and I'm like, I wanna go back so bad.
So finally this year we could do it.
In that moment I just felt really proud
to be Canadian, to be from such a beautiful country,
to be a traveler, to be someone who could
just strike up a conversation with random people,
because I don't think we do enough of that these days.
Awesome eh?
- [Mom] Oh amazing, Andrew, yes, enjoy your trip.
- [Gunnarolla] I took a photo of them on the beach
and she actually reached out to me recently,
so it's cool to just have another friend in the world.
I really enjoyed my trip to Moncton.
I had no idea what to expect,
but I came away with an appreciation for a city
that I think a lot of people don't think to go to.
If you wanna feel connected to nature,
if you want to explore in an environment
that is safe and friendly,
you should get out to Moncton.
There are so many things to see in Canada,
and there were so many other things to see around Moncton,
but I'm never worried about seeing everything when I travel
because it just gives me a reason to go back
and I can't wait to go back again one day.