This Canadian Idyllic Town Has Clear Water It Looks Like The Caribbean

The motel also boasts a stunning, renovated, and ’70s-chic hotel.

I didn’t exactly know where we were, and that was the best part. Katlyn, my friend from America, and I arrived in Toronto last June. It was our first reunion since 2018. But an hour after landing in Ontario’s capital, we were surrounded by verdant rolling fields, twisting and turning down two-lane roads toward some place called Sauble Beach. It was as if the city vanished as fast as our friendship found its rhythm.

I wrote about this a year before. two friends who fixed up a midcentury outpost The shores of Lake Huron, which Netflix documented in a series called Motel Makeover. The owners and I kept in touch after the article was published, and they asked if I’d like to visit with a pal once summer returned. Katlyn was the only person who could make it. Since we met in Prague as college students, Katlyn and I bonded over the best three words in the travel dictionary: “Sure, why not?” It’s how Krakow, Vienna, Joshua Tree, and Vermont ended up in our rearview mirror, and how a quiet Canadian coastal town stretched out in front of us.

We were excited to see the refurbished 1970s-meets-Instagram design of The June Motel in person — it was a bit of a celebrity. After two years of predictable outcomes, we began to crave the simple thrills of novelty. Katlyn and me had an esoteric understanding of our destination, but we had little in the way of reference other than my story and the show. To us, Canada screamed spontaneity.

It was close to midnight when we arrived in Sauble Beach, after travelling nearly three hours from Toronto. The A-framed lobby at the front of the property was empty except for an employee waiting for us to appear, and she smiled and poured us coups of rosé as soon as we checked in. “It almost feels like I’m back in California,” I said as we looked around. The lobby’s bright white walls and warm wood ceiling enclosed a blush-toned coffee bar and shop on one end and a sitting area on the other, complete with a longboard leaning next to a rounded leather couch. “Well, the weather isn’t exactly Californian,” said our friend behind the desk with a laugh.

As we made our way out, one of the owners and her family invited us to join them at a fire pit by the pool. There was wine and tea and bundled ingredients for s’mores, plus blankets as a wink to how far north we actually were. Katlyn took her sweet time roasting marshmallows, while I quickly ate my own. The stars were a perfect setting for stories and laughter as we shared our stories. Once our glasses were empty and we realized how late it was, Katlyn and I walked toward the property’s back building, the motel. Our room could be reached through a sliding glass door overlooking the pool, and its walls were aglow with a neon pink sign that proclaimed “good vibes only.”

As we drove an hour to Tobermory, a breakfast of oatmeal and fruits was ready for us as we got up in the morning. We watched as fields passed our windows, and Bob Seger, Paul McCartney, filled the air. Finally, we came across this tiny harbor town. Tobermory was our destination to see the only thing that had been planned for us: a tour on a boat with glass bottoms of 19th-century wrecks sailing towards Flowerpot Island. This island was named after the V-shaped rock formations found along its coast. They could be clearly seen beyond a historic lighthouse, but their mistakes were not hidden by the icy-cold waters that were vibrantly blue and transparent. Katlyn and I couldn’t believe our eyes.

“Are we in Canada, or the Caribbean?” we said to each other, despite wearing sweaters and hats. It was much cooler on the ground, so we spent some time walking around town, stopping for ice cream, and eating fish and chips lunches. The map was found in a bookshop. Bruce TrailWe just happened to be on it. It covers 500 miles between Tobermory and Niagara Falls — its website calls the trail “Canada’s oldest and longest marked footpath.”

“We could do the whole trail, if we wanted,” I said to Katlyn, knowing that wasn’t a request as much as a prediction. We were less than two hours away from Niagara Falls, which was actually closer to Toronto than we thought. Already There. A couple of days later, that’s what we did.

Upon our return to Sauble Beach, we went to its namesake sand and surf at sunset and later got an alfresco dinner at the hotel’s restaurant, Heydays. The town hadn’t fully come alive for the season during our stay at the start of June, but we were still satisfied with what the motel had to offer — including more rounds of s’mores, our own hammock, and lounge chairs by the pool. Amicis Coffee Bar and Wellness Refinery are great places to grab a quick breakfast. Diary Queen is right down the street for a Blizzard if you prefer a sweeter dessert.

After spending the weekend in Sauble Beach we set off for Toronto, stopping in small towns to make it to the landing point at the Drake Hotel We soaked ourselves in the familiarity of a city’s buzz and stayed there. We needed our slow pace at June Motel and our road trip along the Bruce Trail. Even though we had no idea where we were, we were re-discovering ourselves.

Kelly Dawson She is a journalist, editor, and media advisor. Follow her on Instagram Twitter.

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