This will be the last post of our trip as we are flying home today, but here’s our personal highlights from the Eastern portion of the trip – following on from our Western highlights if you want to see those too. We had 9 stops in total and did so much, it was a bit hard to choose, but here you go.

Lucy’s picks

Best stop

This was super tough to call as they’ve all been great, but for the sake of getting this post published before we get home I’ve landed on Quebec City, which just pipped Halifax, Nova Scotia! There was so much to see and do here with each day bringing something different and new to our experience. There was also a lovely National Park on the doorstep too for when you wanted a change of scenery.

Best National Park

This was an easy pick for me and Acadia wins hands down and I can see why it is the second most visited park in North America. The hikes are all really varied and there’s a lot of lovely lakes too. They may not have been the emerald colour of the glacier water of the lakes in the west but they were still stunning.

Best hike

Bee Hive, Acadia National Park. This was really good fun, especially the parts where you had to climb the metal rungs on the cliff face. It was a challenging and very unique walk.

Best lighthouse

Portland Headlight. This was very picturesque and had a lovely coastal path to walk too.

Best brewery/bar

There were so many great ones that I have afforded myself two picks – one for the best beer selection and the second for the place itself. Best beer selection was the Garrison Brewing Co. in Halifax, Nova Scotia, as they had lots of choice and they had some interesting tropical offerings too. It kind of reminded us of Tiny Rebel back home.

The best bar itself was the Moose Head factory and taproom. It had a great inside with a view of the brewery and there was a good outdoor patio too. Plus we love the Moose Head brand and it was obviously well themed everywhere.

Best beer

Little flume, Battery Steele Brewery, Portland. Again so many great ones, this is me merely highlighting a particularly nice and memorable one.

Best food

There was actually so many to choose from on the East coast as we had some lush food but I have whittled it down to this chicken tikka wrap we got from one of the food stalls in the market in Halifax, called Coastal Curry. It was so nice we had it a second time on another day. Honourable mention goes to the Detroit style pizzas too, which were also epic.

Best accommodation

Our apartment in Moncton. It was spacious and modern and most importantly had a brewery and pizza place within a 5 minute walk.

Best activity

I have chosen buggying around Peaks island. It was great fun bombing it around the island on 4 wheels.

Si’s picks

Best stop

My favourite stop I think was Halifax. The city itself was really nice with a lovely waterfront board walk and with loads of places to eat. There were loads of good breweries including Garrison Brewing down in town which has a great selection of unusual beers, and Robot Brewing with a great outdoor patio near the park.

We did some great day trips from here too including to the picturesque maritime villages of Lunenburg and Mahone Bay, our boat trip out to see Oak Island (which I’ve wanted to visit for ages!) and Peggy’s Cove with a great lighthouse and pretty fishing village. Loads to see and do in Halifax, it was a great few days there!

Honourable mention to Quebec City too, a really nice city, very different to other large American and Canadian cities and with a very French/Parisian feel. Cool summer time bars, nice Old Town area, and amazing waterfalls even, just outside the city on our bike ride.

Best National Park

We went to a hand full of national parks on the eastern side of our trip, but my favourite was Acadia in Maine, USA. Some great hikes (Jordan pond when it wasn’t foggy and the crazy climb up Bee Hive especially), and the town of Bar Harbor was nice too. Loads to do here!

Best hike

It’s probably got to be the Bee Hive walk in Acadia. Really varied and different. Some crazy climbing up ladders, great views from the top, some nice lake views and some fun clambering on our way down too. Hard work, but very different to most other hikes we’ve done

Best lighthouse

My favourite was Peggy’s Cove, in a great spot on a rocky coastline outside of Halifax, Nova Scotia. We had fun clambering over the rocks along the shore line as far as we could get, and the little village itself was very pretty and picturesque too and a nice place to sit for a while.

Best bar/brewery

This is a really tough one! We found so many great bars on this trip. There were the 3 right next to each other in Portland including Foundation Brewing Co, there was Grand Falls Brewing with live music when we were there, Garrison Brewing in downtown Halifax which had probably the best beer selection, Tide and Boar Brewing in Moncton with great pizzas and a short 5 mins walk from our Airbnb, and Stone Corral Brewing in Vermont with some lovely beer and in a nice little village..And of course there were the larger breweries like Sam Adam’s in Boston and Moose Head in Saint John.

Really hard to narrow this down but I’ll have to go for Moosehead. Awesome selection, friendly staff, good merch, fun brewery tour, nice outdoor patio in the sun, well-priced (especially with the good exchange rate to Canadian Dollars) and all only 2 mins walk from our Airbnb.

Best beer

Again so many nice and different beers on this trip. I’m going to pick one we had right at the end of the trip in Vermont at the local Stone Corral Brewery which was called Exit 11. Honourable mention to the pineapple tropical beer I had at Garrison Brewing in Halifax too.

Best food

It’s got to be the fried chicken we had from Chkn Chop in Halifax, so nice we went back again a few nights later! We had found an amazing chicken place on our last trip in around the West Coast National Parks which had made the top of the list then too, so clearly we enjoy our fried chicken in North America if we find a good place!

Honourable mention to the amazing burgers we had at Tasty Burgers in Boston, and the breakfast/brunch we had at the Friendly Toast in Portsmouth, Maine on our drive between Boston and Portland.

Best accommodation

I was going to choose our apartment in Moncton, but since Lucy selected that (this is cheating I know!) and it was a very close call anyway, I’m going to select our Airbnb in Saint John. Modern and comfortable, and only stumbling distance to the Moose Head Brewery. I’ve just realised we never even posted pics of this one in our post from Saint John, so here you go.

Best activity

Not a “wow moment” as such, but a highlight I thought was driving the golf buggies around Peak Island when we were staying in Portland, Maine. Great fun and a nice way to get around for a couple of hours. Honourable mention for our boat tour round Oak Island when we were staying in Halifax too.