Highlights of our Canadian Working Holiday This week another milestone was reached as we celebrated 18 months in Canada. As always the time has flown by and we wanted to take this opportunity to reflect on some of the best things we’ve done in the last 12 months. So here we go, in no particular order, 6 of our favourite things from this year: 1. Showing … Continue reading Looking back on 18 months in Canada
Our guide to getting an Ontario Health Insurance Plan (OHIP) card So you’ve arrived in Canada, and are living in Ontario on your IEC working holiday visa. Hopefully you’ve come with some travel insurance that’ll cover you in case of any immediate medical emergencies (you shouldn’t have got handed your visa at the border without the insurance!). But what about those non-emergency medical things, which … Continue reading Accessing health care in Ontario
Activating our second IEC work permits at Rainbow Bridge, Niagara Falls An IEC working holiday visa can only be activated at a Port of Entry to Canada. This means that if you’re already in Canada you have to leave the country and come back in again. In 2014 we chose to do this by taking a trip to Seattle. This time we decided to go for the … Continue reading Our experience flagpoling at Niagara Falls
So today is our 6 month anniversary since leaving the UK to come on our Canadian adventure. Doesn’t time fly! The good news is that in the past 2 weeks our respective parents have both booked trips to come and visit us (fortunately not at the same time…), and we can’t wait to see them again! To mark our 6 month anniversary, we decided to look … Continue reading Looking back on 6 months in Canada
Here at Brown Bear HQ we were recently honoured to be asked to write a contribution on our experiences for a Canadian working holiday eBook. The eBook in question is written by Gemma from the excellent offtracktravel.ca. Gemma’s website is full of useful tips and inspiration on travelling to Canada’s lesser known parts. Last year, her and partner JR went on a 5 month road trip … Continue reading Canadian working holiday eBook – recognition for Brown Bear!
This post is only for you if you are a) new to Toronto or a visitor and need to know how to get around b) a transport geek c) a procrastinator who will read anything to avoid doing their work So read on if you want to know more about public transport fares, transfers and getting to and from Toronto Pearson airport! Public transport, or transit … Continue reading Our guide to getting around Toronto on the TTC
One of the next things we did after getting our new home was to get ourselves a Canadian driver’s licence. The amount of time you can drive on a UK licence in Canada depends on the province. In Ontario you only have 60 days, but in BC for example it’s 90 days. Fortunately for us the UK has an exchange agreement with Ontario, which as … Continue reading Getting an Ontario Driver’s Licence
Now that the fun of our travelling was over, we were back in Toronto and it was time to find somewhere to live before the ‘fun’ of working started! Rather than having a useful website like Rightmove, that allows you to easily search for properties and view photos, here you have to use Kijiji and Craigslist, which are more popular variants of the Gumtree style … Continue reading Finding accommodation in Toronto
Happy New Year! We still have quite a lot of 2014 to catch up with on the blog (we are 2 months behind!) but we thought it would be a good time to start thinking about our plans for 2015. So in no particular order here is the bucket list: 1. Find a moose in the wild. So far the closest we’ve got is some footprints … Continue reading Our 2015 Canadian bucket list
Monday was our 3-months-in-Canada anniversary, and along the way we have made a few observations of things that are different with back home in the UK. Given that Canada was once part of the British Empire and all that, some things are similar to the UK, but given the economic and cultural strength of the USA to the south, there are many things that are different … Continue reading 10 differences between Canada and the UK
Brown Bear Travels 