Canada Travel Guide

Canada requires anybody who want to enter the country to be of "good moral character", with a strict interpretation regarding past offences. Any offence may make you inadmissible, including things not regarded as criminal offences in your home country and the country where they were committed, such as some traffic law violations. Also an active civil judgement or financial trouble, such as significant unpaid debt may make you inadmissibile. See Traveling with a criminal history#Canada.

Popular souvenirs from Canada include smoked salmon and maple syrup products. Canada's currency is the Canadian dollar (symbol: $, ISO currency code: CAD), commonly referred to as a "buck" (slang), "loonie" (nickname for the $1 coin, now also a slang term for the currency), or in Canadian French, un piastre. The Canadian dollar is considered to be one of the world's major currencies, and is widely available at banks and money changers throughout the world. You can assume that any "$" sign you see while in Canada (and in this article) refers to Canadian dollars unless it includes other initials…

Canada is huge – the second largest country in the world by area after Russia; this means that you will need several days to appreciate even a part of the country. The distances involved will boggle many travellers, though perhaps not those from other large countries.

English and French are the only two official languages in Canada at the federal level, though many other languages are spoken among immigrants or Canada's native peoples. All communications and services provided by the federal government are required by law to be available in both official languages. However, individual provinces are free to decide which languages they wish to adopt as official languages at the provincial level, meaning that offices of the provincial governments may not necessar…

Safety in Canada is not usually a problem, and some basic common sense will go a long way. Even in the largest cities, violent crime is not a serious problem, and very few people are ever armed. Violent crime needn't worry the average traveller, as it is generally confined to particular neighbourhoods and is rarely a random crime. Overall crime rates in Canadian cities remain low compared to most similar sized urban areas in the United States and much of the rest of the world (though violent crime rates are higher than most western European cities). Crime is higher overall in western provinces…

You are unlikely to face health problems here that you wouldn't face in any other Western industrialized country (despite claims of inferior care, which often varies by hospital and is usually exaggerated). The health care system tends to be very effective and widely accessible. However, wait times for non-critical illnesses or injuries can take up to several hours in major cities like Toronto.

The communication infrastructure of Canada is typical of any first-world, developed, industrialized country.

By phone

Canada is part of the North American Numbering Plan (along with the US and most of the Caribbean) and uses the country code +1. Area codes and local phone numbers follow the same format as the United States: 1 — three digit area code — seven-digit local phone number. The leading '1' is omitted when making local landline calls and optional on local mobile calls.…

Canada is very much a multicultural country, especially in the main cities. As of the 2021 census, 23% of Canadian residents were immigrants; 51% of the population of Toronto (the largest city) and 42% of the population of Vancouver (the third largest city), were born outside the country, and another 20% or so had at least one parent born outside the country.

Canada recognizes and celebrates the following national holidays (some provinces may have minor differences): Canada's Labour Day is not celebrated on 1 May, but on the first Monday in September. Labour Day is generally the last day of vacation for Canadian students before the start of the school year.