Short of voting, protesting and getting into arguments with MAGA people I don't know what else I can effectively do.
If you go south you get sun and beaches. The coastal regions of Canada will be comparable to the coastal regions of New England and the Pacific Northwest, so there's no need to go all the way there if that's the sort of beach you're looking for.
Likewise your outdoors, your cities and restaurants and museums are all going to be about the same as the options available in the US, just further away. It's not really "exotic".
We don't really have the same emigrant relationship with Canada; my grandfather's family spent a couple generations in Canada, but my mother only found out about it after he died. He considered his family to be Irish and to have come from Ireland; that they came to the US via a couple of generations spent in New Brunswick was never a part of the family lore.
So there's no real "visiting the home of my ancestors" sort of feeling you'd otherwise see.
I don't know about "exotic", but for anyone living in the northeast of the US, the easiest way to visit Europe (sort of) is to drive up to Montreal/Quebec.
But, I think there some unique things worth seeing for an American: The old parts of Montreal/Quebec city, and the Alberta Rockies, especially the corridor between Banff and Jasper.
Living on the west coast, Vancouver's the easiest to get to -- I love Vancouver (and Victoria), and I've been both places several times, and I've gone to Whistler a handful of times as well, but, again, it's a lot like where I grew up in Seattle.
I really do want to visit Montreal sometime, but I also want to visit Chicago and Memphis and a lot of other "domestic" locations that I somehow never find the time for.
Also, when you grow up in a country you have a lot of local knowledge from culture, friends, television, education, so we just know a lot more about domestic places we haven't (yet) visited. Plus, a substantial number of people don't have passports. We used to be able to visit Canada easily without one, now we cannot.
As a film lover, I've been to the Toronto film festival many times, it's an unmatched experience--so many things to see, and watch films with a very engaged festival crowd just makes them better. (In the same way, even if you don't love Star Wars, going on opening weekend, with the most enthusiastic fans, makes the experience better.) And given that nearly half of Toronto's population was born outside of Canada, it makes even New York feel a little parochial.
* Montreal - it's a big-ish city, without piss in the subways. Also the restaurant scene is good, and the old town is worth seeing.
* Quebec City - again, the old town is worth seeing. There's not much else in the US/Canada like it.
* Alberta Rockies - The corridor between Banff and Jasper is beautiful. Also, Waterton is decent. It's right across the border from Glacier NP in Montana, but less crowded. And for skiers, the Alberta Rockies also probably had the best snow in North America this past year.
1. A lot of people can't afford vacations right now
2. For people in the US, socially and culturally, there's not much of a "drive" or desire to visit Canada. I've worked for Canadian companies, etc. I've never once in my entire life heard somebody talk about visiting Canada. It's always someplace warm and tropical or it's Europe or Asia.
Especially in Vancouver, most people should be pretty aware that anyone with Washington/Oregon plates (which I'm guessing is what you have) probably hates Trump more than they do.
Not surprised they want to keep safely within their "East-USA" territory and go nowhere. No one wants to be disappeared in Ecuador.
The Canadian people I met as we travelled were all amazing. I was humbled that they took time to talk. And were less interested in identity than issues. One older gentleman, who saw us pull into the McDonalds with Washington plates approached us in the foyer and wanted to tell me that despite what others might say, I was welcome there. It was on one hand kinda weird and at the same time really touching.
It's not hard to imagine people like these extending their good will to foreigners, even "hostile" ones.
https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2026/03/05/in-25-countr...
In contrast, "The United States is the only place we surveyed where more adults (ages 18 and older) describe the morality and ethics of others living in the country as bad (53%) than as good (47%)."
There might be a bit more hockey ribbing for the next few weeks, but I know there's a ton of respect for Canada's team.
At the end of the day, the idea of "My problem is with the government, and not the people" is as old as time.
In my 20+ years of regularly travelling to the States, I've almost always had great interactions with the people I've met in all parts of the US I've visited, and I've been all over. "Warm and welcoming" is a very good description.
I hope to be able to visit again in the future.
Also:
Give money to organizations that are doing the work on your behalf. Lawsuits are still important.
Call or write your reps *frequently*. They use software to automatically tabulate voter positions. (And they look at it--they want to keep their jobs!)
If you've never experienced a real winter or done neat things like winter sports then visiting Canada in the winter is a great travel experience.
>effectively
these are mutually exclusive
That it was my/our fault such views propagate because we're not "willing to understand their perspectives".
The thing is, their perspectives are a lie. And in many cases, they know they're a lie, they just don't. fucking. care.
So they can go online and whine about being dismissed or criticized, or pat each other on the back for "knowing the truth". There's a subset who, I'm sure, see such things as actual literal truth, and that's a different issue altogether, but not sure it's my responsibility to solve, or that failure to engage on my part makes the current situation "my fault".
> It's not really a choice but a demonstration of intelligence and empathy. Still, if you deliberately decide to remain ignorant, or simply fail to understand the opposition's position even despite your best efforts, it shouldn't surprise you when you also fail to convince people your position is the correct one.
Like huh? It is okay for them to be objectively dishonest, and have zero shred of empathy, curiosity for my position, but refusing to engage on a good faith basis is a failing of mine?
> Once you reach this stage, your commentary pretty much just becomes elaborate whining, which makes a poor impression of yourself and actually pushes people away from your position.
This is literally Idiocracy in the making.
If I make a poor impression on people by repeatedly shutting down their horseshit about doctors performing "abortions" up to a week or a month after birth, or that babies are being harvested in the basement of a pizza parlor for their adrenachrome, and you're more concerned about how I should be "understanding" of that perspective, again, you're also supporting the idiocracy.
https://www.ncsl.org/elections-and-campaigns/recall-of-state...
https://www.ncsl.org/elections-and-campaigns/recall-of-state...
Beyond that, my state is not the problem.
The conditions of TSA and the immigration system are...not independent of politics (or even independent of the top tier of most divisive partisan political issues in the current American context.)
The administration could not do any of this without the support of Congress, which has not wavered. That support is unwavering because those elected officials are not getting negative feedback from their voters and donors, so they have every expectation that staying this course will work out just great for them.
This administration's actions only continue with the approval of their party who put them and keep them in power.
The president would do basically nothing for four years, which would cause some things to move slowly. But it would be a very stable environment. No random tariffs via executive order, no random wars or invasions, no governing via tweet.
Ham sandwich would maybe be one of our better presidents. Top 50%, probably.
https://www.snopes.com/news/2022/06/17/third-pound-burger-fr...
"But the party just ran a bad candidate!"
"Egg prices were too high!!"
"Kamala would've been just as bad for Gaza as Trump!"
No, sorry, voters don't get a pass because they're apathetic or love being the "enlightened centrist" that lets fascism takeover.
In other news, a mouse and an elephant are both mammals.
If only there was some obvious way to tell the difference between them.
If the system decides to screw you over, that your average Cali resident disapproves doesn't stop you being in a holding cell for weeks.
I try not to let them influence my behavior too much, but at the end of the day, getting thrown in immigration jail on false accusations (yes happened to me despite presenting US passport) or detained for 12+ hours (also happened several times) puts constraints on vacation plans.
We just had to wait 3 hours in line to get into Costa Rica.
