Feel freedom

Atlantic Canada’s wide-open spaces and pristine natural beauty make the perfect stage for a memorable and inspiring post-lockdown escape

After a year of restrictions and indoor incarceration, the great outdoors has never been more tempting and the need to experience the remarkable never more powerful. When the time is right to travel again, book your clients a trip to Atlantic Canada, just a five – six hour flight from London, and they can tick off bucket list experiences like taking a helicopter for a picnic and watching whales.

Thrill seekers will love paddling through Gros Morne National Park, UNESCO World Heritage Site in Newfoundland and Labrador, past the rugged coastal shallows of Bonne Bay. Sturdy sea kayaks will carry beginner and expert paddlers through fjords and float above colourful underwater worlds. Kayakers can see seals sunbathing, whales and porpoises playing and eagles scouting for fish while guides tell the history of Bonne Bay, including how indigenous cultures have fished there for centuries.

Prince Edward Island’s Confederation Trail is for all levels of fitness, gently rambling through the rural island’s prettiest spots. The 278 miles of rolling stone dust trail runs east to west, from the French/Irish fishing community of Tignish to Elmira, once the end of the line for the island’s railway. Branch trails reach to capital Charlottetown and many quaint small towns. The trail is at its green and leafy best in spring but woods, farmland and coast can be explored all year by bicycle or foot.

This Nova Scotia tour is a picnic like no other for the adventurous at heart. Guests helicopter from the urban core of Halifax, over the spectacular coast to the remote and rocky Sambro Island, home to the oldest working lighthouse in North America. The Heli Picnic Island Escape includes views of Halifax’s starshaped fort and an indulgent feast of local cheese, charcuterie and wine on a private beach frequented only by seals and seabirds, where guests learn the secrets of Sambro.

New Brunswick’s Bay of Fundy is visited by some of the world’s rarest whales and no wonder, its sheltered habitat is the perfect place to raise a calf and it’s home to the world’s highest tides which bring an abundance of seafood. On a whale watching trip in Fundy you could spot finbacks, humpbacks, minkes and the endangered right whale as well as playful porpoises, supple seals and wheeling seabirds – all from a respectful distance of course.

What to sell

Fred Olsen Cruise Lines has bolstered its fleet with the addition of two ex-Holland America Line ships. They start sailing as Borealis and Bolette in May on new cruises around the British isles, including the lochs and isles of Scotland, plus the waterways of Belgium and France. In 2022, Bolette will sail an 18-night voyage around the Balkans.

Celestyal Cruises plans on restarting operations in March with the seven-night Three Continents cruises visiting Greece, Egypt, Israel and Turkey on Celestyal Experience, the former Costa neoRomantica. The ship, which has an adult-only