On our trip to the Western USA and Hawaii in 2019, we were flying to San Francisco from London on Air Canada via Toronto. We had a seven hour stopover in Toronto and initially planned to get out into the city for a look around. The day before we were due to leave, I suddenly had the idea of hiring a car and driving to Niagara falls instead, since we would not be affected by the traffic leaving Toronto in the evening. I quickly booked a car hire and thus began one of our more ambitious stopover adventures.
The trip to Niagara falls from Toronto Pearson International is about 250KM round trip, so we knew that it would be important to leave ourselves ample time to do everything we needed. At the airport, we checked all of our luggage through to our final destination of San Francisco apart from the car seat which we asked to be gate checked so that we could use it for our stopover.
On arrival in Toronto we were pretty dismayed to discover that the car seat had not been gate checked correctly and was sitting in a holding area, awaiting our onward connection. We had an anxious wait for someone to go and get it in the baggage hall, hoping that we would still have enough time to get our flight. When the car seat finally arrived we rushed to the hire desk and told the attendant of our plans which she thought should be feasible. Thus we started on the drive to Niagara.
Luckily, we were able to reach Niagara in good time and could admire the falls in all of their majesty whilst also walking around the town.
Soon it was time for the trip back to the airport after a quick dinner and we made it back no worse for wear with plenty of time to spare.
This stopover was a really fantastic way to start our holiday and gave us the chance to visit somewhere that was definitely not a place we would have specifically travelled to otherwise. We were also able to learn a few important things.
- If you are going to gate check an item, it works better if you actually take it to the gate, otherwise a specific tag may be missing.
- If you definitely need something for a stopover, aim to physically carry it onto the plane with you, otherwise you are at risk of not having it when you land. If your child is old enough consider a travel car seat which doubles as a child’s backpack.
- Remember to check whether you have driven over any toll roads, since it is cheaper to pay up front rather than to have the hire company pay for you.
- Talk to your car hire staff and let them know what you are doing, they can give you advice since they are much more likely to know the local traffic than you are.
