Every kind of stay
Not sure where to start? Pick the kind of trip you're taking and we'll show you the stays that fit.
Adults-Only
Adults-only hotels in Canada are small inns, not resorts, and the age limit changes from one house to the next. Of the 13 stays on this page, four set a rule that keeps children out: Abigail's Hotel in Victoria, the Banff Boutique Inn, the Swiss Hotel in Ottawa and the Brookside Inn Boutique Hotel in Abbotsford. A fifth, the Auberge Wild Rose Inn near Moncton, is listed as adult-only on some booking sites only. None of them is a large all-inclusive resort. Read the age line before booking with a teenager: it runs from 12 to 19. Abigail's is the one I would book first: an adult-only inn of 30 rooms in a 1930s Tudor mansion about three short blocks from Victoria's Inner Harbour, with a three-course breakfast and a 9.6 rating from 962 reviews. The hotel's own booking page sets a minimum age of 16, so a younger teen cannot come. In the Rockies, the Banff Boutique Inn (9.3, 687 reviews) is on Cave Avenue, the street to the Cave and Basin National Historic Site, a walk from Banff Avenue. Listings say the main guest must be 18 to check in, and there is parking on site. The Swiss Hotel in Ottawa (8.6, 228 reviews) is the strictest: Expedia says no guest aged 18 or under, Priceline gives a minimum check-in age of 19. It has no elevator, so ask for a lower floor if stairs are a problem. In the Fraser Valley, the Brookside Inn (9.0, 163 reviews) only turns away children under 12; it has six rooms with fireplaces, serves a continental breakfast and may refuse stag and bachelorette party bookings. The Auberge Wild Rose Inn near Moncton (8.9, 765 reviews) is adult-only on some booking sites, while others accept a young child in the parents' room, with no cribs or rollaway beds: ask before you book. The rest of the list, SOHO Residences Lisgar and the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Ottawa, the avid Hotel in Vaughan, the Hampton Inn in Mississauga, the Comfort Inns in Saint-Jérôme and Lévis, Objectif Santé in Longueuil and the Northern Motel in Sault Ste. Marie, can work for a couple, but none of them, as far as I could check, publishes a policy that keeps children out. If a child-free building is the reason you are booking, choose among the first four, or Wild Rose once you have asked.
Airport
Three hotels sit inside the terminal itself: the Sheraton Gateway at Toronto Pearson Terminal 3, linked to Terminal 1 by the free 24-hour Terminal Link train, the Fairmont at Vancouver YVR, and Delta Hotels at Calgary YYC.
All-Inclusive Resort
No hotel on this site runs on an all-inclusive plan. In Canada, the nearest thing is a Québec pourvoirie on the American plan: a cabin and three meals a day, some reachable only by floatplane.
Boutique
38 boutique hotels in 19 Canadian cities, Toronto first with 6. In Québec City, the Monastère des Augustines puts you in the former convent of the Augustinian sisters, where breakfast is still eaten in silence.
Budget
Simple stays in Canada mostly mean highway motels and small-town inns. This page lists 75 of them in 33 places: 32 carry the word motel in their name, including 11 Motel 6 locations, with an average guest rating of 8.0 and 18 stays at 8.5 or more. Apart from M Montreal (9.2, 3,342 reviews), a hostel with dorms and private rooms on rue Saint-André in downtown Montreal, the list is made of highway towns and suburbs; none is in central Vancouver, Toronto, Banff or Quebec City. The eight Residence & Conference Centre stays are college residences, and that changes everything. In Oakville (Sheridan College), Kitchener-Waterloo (Conestoga) and London (Fanshawe), overnight rooms are only open from May to August, while students are away. The Oakville building has more than a hundred two-bedroom suites, which is useful for two couples or friends sharing. Outside summer, do not count on them: book a motel in the same town instead. In the West, the stays follow the highways. In British Columbia, the Super 8 sits in Abbotsford in the Fraser Valley, and two Kamloops stays, Travelodge Mountview and Rodeway Inn, are where Highway 1 meets Highway 5. Medicine Hat has 5 stays on the Trans-Canada, led by Prairie Crest (8.7, 627 reviews), and Strathcona County 8 around Sherwood Park and Fort Saskatchewan, east of Edmonton. In winter, check 511 Alberta before leaving, and plug in the block heater: the Alberta Motor Association advises at least four hours before driving below minus 15 °C. In Ontario, Chatham-Kent has 9 of the 75 and Sault Ste. Marie 8 (best rated: Ambassador Motel, 8.8, 133 reviews), the last big town on Highway 17 before the north shore of Lake Superior, and the gateway to Michigan by the International Bridge. The most reviewed motel, Motel 6 Kingston (2,485 reviews), sits roughly halfway between Toronto and Montreal on Highway 401. Whitby and Oshawa have three stays east of Toronto. In Quebec, Laval, Terrebonne and the South Shore give Montreal-area options, and Hôtel-Motel Coconut is in Trois-Rivières. Elsewhere, the list fills the gaps along the main routes. Alberta adds Lethbridge (3), Red Deer (2), Grande Prairie (2), Airdrie and Fort McMurray, where the Super 8 scores 8.8 from 195 reviews; in Saskatchewan, Regina has a Motel 6 and a Days Inn, Saskatoon a Motel 6; in Winnipeg, Queen Bee Hotel (8.7, 537 reviews) is the best rated, and Motel 6 Headingley sits at the city's western edge. Ontario also adds Sudbury, Windsor, Sarnia, Hamilton, Newmarket, Brampton and Kawartha Lakes. Among them, the Four Points by Sheraton in Stoney Creek, Hamilton (8.2, 548 reviews), and Newmarket Inn (8.1, 699 reviews) score well, and the SureStay Plus in Windsor has 1,013 reviews. In the Maritimes, Motel 6 Moncton has 2,170 reviews, and Traveller's Inn in Summerside is the Prince Edward Island stop. Taken together, I would use these 75 for nights between long drives, not as a base for a week of sightseeing. Three stays stand out for their setting. Shallow Bay Motel & Cabins (8.8, 337 reviews) is in Cow Head, a village surrounded by Gros Morne National Park, steps from the Gros Morne Theatre Festival stage, with a pool, hot tub and sauna. Erie-O Motel and Marina in Erieau (9.6, 105 reviews) faces Rondeau Bay on Lake Erie, with docks for fishing and kayaks and bicycles for guests. In Quebec's Eastern Townships, Auberge La Table d'Hôte in Abercorn (9.2, 39 reviews), by the Vermont border, is the small-inn exception.
Casino
Nine hotels on this site are attached to a casino, from Pickering Casino Resort east of Toronto and River Rock in Richmond to Hilton Lac-Leamy in Gatineau. Mind the age: 19 at the tables in Ontario and BC, 18 in Québec and Alberta.
Cottage Retreat
No stay on this site is listed as a cottage retreat yet. For Ontario cottage country, look at the Kawartha Lakes on the Trent-Severn Waterway, where Woodland Cottages and Bobcaygeon Shores Cottage Resort rent cottages.
Downtown
309 hotels in 68 Canadian cities sit downtown, Toronto first with 24. There, the PATH runs for more than 30 km, mostly underground, so in January you can cross the core to Union Station without stepping outside.
Family-Friendly
734 hotels in 79 Canadian cities welcome families, most of them in Toronto, Kamloops and Calgary. Heading to the Rockies? Entry to Parks Canada sites, Banff and Jasper included, is free for anyone 17 and under.
Historic & Heritage
Buildings with a past you can sleep in: the Château Frontenac (Canadian Pacific, 1893), Ottawa's 1941 Lord Elgin or Victoria's Strathcona, an office block turned hotel in 1913.
Hot Tub & Sauna
441 hotels in 73 Canadian cities have a hot tub or sauna, and Banff leads with 27 of them. The town also has Canada's highest hot spring, the Upper Hot Springs at 1,585 m on Sulphur Mountain.
Ice Hotel
No ice hotel books through this site. Canada's own, the Hôtel de Glace, is rebuilt each winter at Village Vacances Valcartier, about 45 minutes by shuttle from Old Québec; the 2027 season opens on January 4.
Indoor Pool
508 hotels in 72 Canadian cities have an indoor pool, most of them in Toronto, Mississauga and Saskatoon. At Vancouver airport, the Fairmont inside the terminal pairs its indoor pool with a children's pool and a hot tub.
Lakefront
Few hotels here are truly on a lake. Inn on Long Lake, north of Nanaimo, has its own beach on Long Lake with kayaks, and Hilton Lac-Leamy in Gatineau looks over Lac Leamy, across the river from Ottawa.
Log Cabin
15 cabin and cottage stays in 7 places, 6 of them in Ontario's Kawartha Lakes, such as Woodland Cottages, rated 9.6, and Bobcaygeon Shores. Those lakes sit on the Trent-Severn Waterway, whose locks open to boats from mid-May.
Luxury
65 luxury hotels in 28 Canadian cities, 15 of them in Toronto and 8 in Vancouver, where L'Hermitage Hotel tops the ratings at 9.4 across more than 1,600 reviews.
Maple Season Stay
No hotel on this site is tied to sugar season yet. In Québec, the temps des sucres lasts four to five weeks, from mid-March to late April, and Québec City's Grand Marché runs an urban sugar shack at its peak.
Mountain Lodge
25 mountain lodges in 8 Canadian cities, 13 of them in Banff. Buffalo Mountain Lodge sits on Tunnel Mountain, about 15 minutes on foot from downtown Banff, close to the trail up to the summit.
Northern Lights
No hotel on this site is in aurora country: the only match is a Comfort Inn in Aurora, Ontario. Head north instead: Yellowknife points to mid-November to early April, with dark enough skies again from mid-August.
Pet-Friendly
680 hotels in 82 Canadian cities take pets, from Monsieur Jean in Québec City to Hotel Canoe in Banff. In national parks, your dog stays on a leash of 3 m or less, on trails and in town.
Romantic
For a couple's trip, I'd start with Old Québec, the only city in North America that kept its ramparts, where Monsieur Jean is rated 9.4, then Banff and its 30 romantic stays inside the national park.
Ski-in/Ski-out
True ski-in, ski-out is rare in Canada. In Banff National Park, only Sunshine Mountain Lodge sits on the slopes, at Sunshine Village, reached by gondola; hotels in Banff town reach the lifts by car or shuttle.
Spa & Wellness
From a Turkish hammam on the 10th floor of Winnipeg's Fort Garry Hotel to private Finnish sauna and cold-plunge sessions at The Liberty Inn in Caledon.
Waterfront & Harbour
83 waterfront stays in 28 Canadian cities, 20 of them in Victoria, where seaplanes from downtown Seattle land in the Inner Harbour after about 45 minutes and the Clipper ferry docks downtown too.
Wilderness Retreat
None of the five stays here is off-grid: three are in Banff town, inside the national park, with trails leaving from town. For true wilderness, Québec's pourvoiries go further, some reachable only by floatplane.