These days with the Covid health crisis (boo!), travel to different countries is not really a viable option, so why not visit some of the great places that Canada has to offer? With a little imagination, all the exotic destinations around the world that you’ve always wanted to see can be substituted by these local alternatives.

What is cool about relatively new countries like Canada is how our early immigrants named their new towns and cities. Fleeing war, famine, poverty and the various other fond memories of their respective homelands, new settlers to Canada felt that it was a nice gesture to memorialize their geographic origins by naming their new settlements after them.

There are obvious ones in the area – who doesn’t love Paris (Ontario) in the Spring? London (of course) and we all know that Kitchener was formally Berlin, renamed in 1916 when actual Berlin was stomping across Europe and bullying neutral Belgium. Despite the anti-German sentiment during World War 1, Kaiser Lake (Manitoba and Ontario) and Wilhelm Lake (Ontario) got a pass and have kept their names to this day. Similarly Swastika, Ontario has somehow held on to its moniker.

Speaking of Belgium, I haven’t been there but Brussels Ontario is just a short drive away!  A trip to Antwerp Creek BC, known less for being the diamond capital of the world and more for being a small stream nobody has heard of, could be combined with a visit to Lisbon Lake Trail which is a popular fishing lake. The Portuguese city is also known for its delicious fish.

If you’re just looking to have some fun and take Instagram selfies with some signs, you can visit Ball’s Falls Ontario, Dlldo Newfoundland, St. Louis-du-Ha!Ha! Quebec or Crotch Lake Ontario, all real places where the joke is already old but your laughs are just waiting to begin. If you are a sci-fi fan, what could be better than a visit to Vulcan, Alberta where you can practice spreading your fingers in the Spock salute in front of City Hall. Hardcore enthusiasts will also cut their bangs straight across and wear pointy ears, still much cheaper than travelling to space.

Strangely, Milan, Quebec was founded by Scottish immigrants, maybe because there were already many Aberdeens, Glasgows and Edinburghs across the country. Another theory (mine) is that these settlers were intrigued by Italian culture and always wanted to visit. My Scottish friend Iain visited an Italian girl when we were younger and ended up marrying her so my hypothesis seems solid. Her family was from Sicily (Italy’s Sicily), not Sicily Lake, BC where mafia activity is far less prevalent.

If you’re visiting Italy for the first time, Venice is a good place to get your feet wet, but the hamlet of Venice, Alberta is a great option to beat the crowds with not a gondola or tourist trap in sight.

Looking for another city that never sleeps? New York Pond in Labrador is not a city but with a little imagination could be a viable substitute. The Big Apple it is not, but the people are friendlier if you can find any.

I did a student exchange in Geneva Switzerland (hello, Geneva, Ontario!) over thirty years ago and still remember clearly a conversation I had with a girl I met from Madrid (Madrid, Saskatchewan is a place but she was actually from the Spanish one). During our months-long friendship, which I was hoping would develop into something more, she had obviously built up a resistance to the steady stream of bullshit I’d been feeding her and would not believe that there was such a place as London, Ontario. A quick Google verification was not a thing then and I could not convince her of that or much else.

For a more exotic destination, visit the middle east of the southwest in Damascus (Ontario). It may not be the City of Jasmine or a cultural centre of the Arab world, but our own Damascus is somewhere you can feel free to park a rusty Camaro on your front yard with impunity. While they may not be cities, our Hong Kong is a Geographic Township near Sudbury, as is Ontario’s Singapore, and Moscow is a Dispersed Rural Community, as is our Seville. I don’t know what those two things mean, but they exist and I’m sure are worth a visit.

Tangier, a community in Halifax, is also a port city although much less so than its Moroccan namesake. I have been to Tangier, Morocco and it was beautiful so I’m sure the Canadian version is too. Speaking of Morocco, there is a Casablanca Peak in BC, known as the place Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman weren’t even aware of. While it may lack the deep cultural history of the one on the African continent, our Canadian version beats its slightly better known counterpart by over 1100 metres in elevation (that’s 3608.924 feet!).

So, as you can see, there are a lot of options available to Canadians longing to see the world without leaving the country. Stay tuned for my next article featuring how trying exotic foods like the chimichanga can be a great substitute for visiting Mexico.