Quote:
Originally Posted by esquire
There is so much within 2 hours of the GTA, though... within 2ish hours (assuming you don't get caught in a massive traffic jam), you've got a couple of good-sized metropolises (Hamilton and Buffalo), a major tourist destination (Niagara Falls), various interesting smaller cities (London, Kingston, K-W, etc.) and cottage country with beaches and lakes.
I would not place Toronto into the league of cities that you could stay in for the rest of your life in and never run out of things to do like New York, London, Tokyo, etc., but at the same time there is a ton of interesting places and things in and around the GTA.
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True. I've covered so much within those two hours myself. Mainly for entertainment and exploration. For him, it was like Niagara once with his family, and a handful of short road trips to conservation areas or St. Jacobs Market for instance.
I know that his dad went to a couple of concerts downtown to watch White Snake or something like that but wouldn't bring his son. When we went to a Jays game when we were 16 or 17 he said he honestly couldn't remember if he had been to one before. It was that long ago if he had.
Basically his parents weren't city people. Only lived in Brampton for work and because there's a significant NFLD community there.
I know someone else that has only been to LV for a fun trip and that was once. The only other times he went to the US was for hockey tournaments in Rochester, Buffalo and Syracuse when he was a young lad.
He went to Cuba and DR a handful of times growing up and then with his future wife.
But he hasn't left the country for about eight years now. He goes once a year to Great Wolf Lodge in Niagara with the family but I'm assuming he doesn't have a passport anymore and he likes it that way so his wife can't drag him over the border for shopping.
Also, he loves fishing and being in the woods and grew up going to the cottage. He left the city lifestyle of Brampton and Sauga behind and moved to the Kawarthas to live on a lake and do his trade as his own boss. So basically he's living his ideal lifestyle and has no reason to leave anymore. This also means his kids haven't left Ontario and presumably won't until their late teens at the earliest. Not that it really matters.
I assume there's a lot of Northern Ontario or cottage area people, middle class or lower, who are the same. Like the laid back lifestyle close to nature and surrounded by pristine lakes in the summer and own a boat and don't feel the need to leave, particularly if they don't have a tonne of money to blow.