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NEED ADVICE FOR YOUR NEXT TRIP? ARE YOU AFTER RECOMMENDATIONS, TIPS AND GUIDANCE? THE TRAVEL GEEKS HAVE THE ANSWERS...

- SARAH BARRELL, MATT CARROLLI and JULIA BUCKLEY

Q // Where would you recommend for a wild, outdoorsy trip to Canada, without travelling way out west?

The Rocky Mountains may be synonymous with the wild Canadian outdoors, but you don't need to travel all the way west to find spectacular landscapes and megafauna. Montreal or Toronto (each around seven to eight hours from the UK) are the obvious entry points for eastern Canada. They're also two of the greatest cities in the country for diverse culture, excellent cuisine and early settler history, and are gateways to some of Canada's most distinctive backcountry.

With its maple-carpeted hills, rocky ridges and innumerable lakes, Algonquin Provincial Park is home to moose, bears and common loons (a waterbird that's a symbol of the Canadian wilderness), whose yodelling call echoes across the park. There are inexhaustible hiking opportunities here, with trails through spruce bogs and thickets of white pine, passing remnants of 19th-century logging camps. Alternatively, explore a 1,300-mile network of canoe trails, with guided camp-to camp tours or self-guided routes following detailed park maps. ontarioparks.com/park/algonquin

Northeast of Montreal and Quebec City is the mouth of the epic St Lawrence River. Connecting Canada's Great Lakes with the Atlantic, its cliff-fringed coastline is the perfect viewing platform for spotting whales. Quebec is visited by a variety of marine mammals, including the blue whale, and from May to October, the St Lawrence and Saguenay rivers offer whale-watching cruises.

In autumn, when the trees are a fiery display of foliage, you might also witness the epic migration of some 600,000 snow geese around the town of Montmagny, east of Quebec City. bonjourquebec.com