Tips for traveling in Toronto

Toronto, we hardly knew ye - which is a bummer, because you seem cool.

We drove in to Toronto on Sunday sometime late morning. By the time we returned our rental car and settled into sight-seeing, it was mid afternoon and time was slipping through our fingers quickly. While we didn't do anything touristy, we did get in a good afternoon and evening of window shopping at the art galleries and shops in the West Queen West neighborhood and then on to downtown for more self-guided wandering.

During our brief stay we tried every type of land transportation Toronto had to offer: (rental) car, subway, bus, taxi, street car, on foot and train. In case you find yourself in Toronto, here are the lessons we learned, so you don't have to the hard way.

• Toronto had a very good transportation system, so forgoing a rental car is a very real possibility unless you need to go to the outlying areas. Additionally, the public transportation and areas we traveled to all seemed very safe. My measure of safe: I spotted elderly women and teenage girls using public transportation alone. If they can do it, I figured it must be safe.


• A public transportation day pass can be obtained at the currency exchange booths in the Pearson Airport. This means you don't have to freak out looking for exact Canadian change every time you ride the bus, subway or street cars.


• Money saving tip: On weekends, 2 adults can ride Toronto's public transportation on just 1 day pass. They also have other family configurations on the back of the pass, in case that applies to you.


• Amtrak is an American company. Toronto is in Canada. Even though you may be taking the Amtrak train back into the U.S., Canadians (understandably) don't know what you are talking about when you say Amtrak, so just call it the train.


• The Toronto traffic we experienced from the airport rivaled Los Angeles. To be fair, the highway was undergoing construction so I don't think it is like that all the time.
  
• Get used to the metric system if you are driving. 1 km = 0.62 miles. The sign showing a speed limit of 100 is in km/hour, which is a decidedly less cool 62 MPH.
  

Clockwise from top left: Building in downtown Toronto I thought was shutter-worthy; streetcar passing by in West Queen West neighborhood; he asked me to take his picture; street food selling just about anything you can think of in downtown Toronto. Above, left: Toronto Union Station in the somewhat early morning.