The five best weekend getaways from Ottawa by car are Kingston, Prince Edward County, Mont-Tremblant, Montreal and Quebec City. Kingston is the closest at about two hours, Prince Edward County about three, and Quebec City is the long-weekend option at 2.5 hours beyond Montreal. The right pick depends less on distance than on what you want the two nights to feel like: waterfront history, wine and beaches, mountains, a big city, or a walled one.
How to Choose a Weekend Away from Ottawa
Ottawa is unusually well placed for overnight trips. Within a few hours’ drive sit a limestone waterfront city, a wine country on a peninsula, a Laurentian mountain resort, Montreal and Old Quebec. What changes from one to the next is the rhythm of the weekend, so it helps to decide on the rhythm first and the destination second.
The table below keeps to figures published by the destinations themselves or by Destination Ontario. Where we could not read a published distance from Ottawa, it says so rather than guessing.
| Destination | Distance from Ottawa | Nights worth booking | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kingston, Ontario | 200 km, about 2 hours | 1 to 2 | History, waterfront, easy driving |
| Prince Edward County, Ontario | 270 km, about 3 hours | 2 | Wineries, beaches, slow food |
| Mont-Tremblant, Quebec | About 165 km, about 2 hours (Tremblant’s own figures) | 2 | Mountains, hiking, skiing |
| Montreal, Quebec | About 2 hours by Via Rail (185 km) | 2 | Food, museums, nightlife |
| Quebec City, Quebec | 2.5 hours by car beyond Montreal | 3 | Old-world streets, long weekends |
A few rules of thumb hold across all five. Leave Friday after work only for Kingston; anything farther eats the evening. Book accommodation first, because the popular weekends in wine country and at the resort fill early. And keep the schedule loose: the pleasure of each of these places is wandering, not ticking off a list.
Kingston: the Easy Two-Hour Weekend
Kingston is the most forgiving getaway on this list. Destination Ontario puts the drive from Ottawa at 125 miles (200 kilometres), about 2 hours, and the city’s own tourism site calls it the “Limestone City”, a nickname the downtown earns on every corner. It also sits at the far end of the Rideau Canal: Parks Canada describes the waterway as running 202 km from Ottawa to Kingston, through 24 lockstations, and as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. If you have already walked the canal in Ottawa, arriving at its southern end is a good excuse for the drive; our Rideau Canal UNESCO guide explains what you are following.
Destination Ontario’s Kingston highlights make a sensible skeleton for a weekend:
- Fort Henry National Historic Site, listed by Destination Ontario as a UNESCO World Heritage Site with guided tours, musical performances and military demonstrations. It is operated by the St. Lawrence Parks Commission, and its own site currently reads “Closed for the season”, so confirm opening dates before building a trip around it.
- Kingston Penitentiary tours, a look inside one of Canada’s oldest and most notorious jails.
- 1000 Island Cruises, with brunch, lunch and sunset dinner sailings on the St. Lawrence River.
- Kingston Public Market, described as the city’s oldest market, for local produce and artisan goods.
- Antique Alley and Martello Alley on Wellington Street, for antiques, vintage finds and original artwork.
- Creative Kingston walking tours, covering film, music and literary themes in English and French.
A single night works if you drive down on Saturday morning, do the fort or the cruise, eat downtown and drive back on Sunday. Two nights let you add the walking tour and the market without hurrying. If the river is what draws you, our Thousand Islands day trip covers the same waters from a different angle and can be stretched into an overnight.
Prince Edward County: Wine, Beaches and a Slower Pace
Prince Edward County is the trip for people who want to stop doing things. The County’s visitor site lists the drive as 3 hours and 270 km (167 miles) from Ottawa, which makes it the longest of the Ontario options and a trip that justifies two nights rather than one.
Destination Ontario’s County highlights read like a menu:
- Wineries: Hinterland Wine Company for sparkling wines, Closson Chase for Chardonnays and Waupoos Estates for Baco Noirs.
- Sandbanks Provincial Park, with beaches, dunes and trails. Destination Ontario’s advice is blunt: it is popular, so plan a weekday visit and book your park pass well in advance.
- Lake on the Mountain, an elevated freshwater lake with views of the Bay of Quinte and the Glenora Ferry.
- The Arts Trail, a route of galleries and studios that includes Oeno Gallery, Mad Dog Gallery and Armstrong Glassworks.
- Base31, a former Second World War air training base that now hosts live music, art and an open-air food market.
- Local drinks: Slake Brewing, Midtown Brewing, Flame + Smith and The County Cider Company.
The practical catch is transport. The County’s visitor site lists no direct train or bus from Ottawa. Rail travellers can take Via Rail to Belleville, the neighbouring town to the north, then continue by taxi, rental car or rideshare. County Transit runs weekday service between Belleville, Bloomfield and Picton, and a seasonal Summer Weekend Connector operates within the County. In practice this is a trip for a car, and ideally for a designated driver: wine country and a long drive home do not mix, so book somewhere to sleep within a short walk or taxi ride of the tasting rooms.
Kingston and the County in One Trip
The two Ontario destinations combine well. Destination Ontario gives the leg from Kingston to Prince Edward County as 60 miles (95 kilometres) and about an hour, which turns a three-night itinerary into a simple line: Ottawa to Kingston on Friday, Kingston to the County on Saturday, and the three-hour drive home on Sunday.
That plan front-loads the history and back-loads the rest. Spend Friday evening and Saturday morning in Kingston, with the fort or the cruise as the anchor. Drive on to the County for the afternoon, with one winery and Lake on the Mountain before dinner. Sunday is for Sandbanks if the season allows, or for the Arts Trail if it does not, and then you are home by evening.
The trade-off is time in the car. Two hours, then one hour, then three hours is a lot of driving for three days, so it suits people who enjoy the road. If you would rather unpack once, choose one destination and stay put.
Mont-Tremblant: Mountains in Every Season
Mont-Tremblant is the outlier on this list: the only mountain, and the only one where the season changes the whole trip. The resort sits in the Laurentian Mountains, about 130 km northwest of Montreal. Tremblant’s own site lists Ottawa at about 165 km and 2 hours by car; check a route planner before you set out.
What the resort is known for is documented in the basics. Its base is a pedestrian village, and the Mont Tremblant Lodge, which opened in 1939 and is credited to Joseph Ryan, remains part of that village today. The mountain has a vertical drop of 645 metres (2,116 feet) and several gondolas, including the 8-person Télécabine Express and the open-air Cabriolet, which links the upper and lower parts of the village. That layout is what makes Tremblant good for a weekend without a plan: park once, and everything you need is within walking distance.
Beyond the resort, Mont-Tremblant National Park covers 1,510 square kilometres of the same region. Wikipedia’s summary lists swimming, canoeing, hiking, cycling and via ferrata in summer and autumn, and snowshoeing, backcountry skiing and dog sledding in winter. In practice that means:
- Winter: skiing and snowboarding at the resort, snowshoeing in the park.
- Summer: hiking, paddling and cycling, with the pedestrian village as a base.
- Autumn: hiking when the leaves turn.
If you prefer something closer to home and less resort-like, the Gatineau side of the region has its own nature options, from the village of Wakefield to the trails of Gatineau Park. Our Wakefield village day trip shows how little it takes to turn a day trip into a cabin or inn weekend.
Montreal: the Big-City Weekend
Montreal is the easiest big-city escape from Ottawa. Our Ottawa vs Montreal comparison puts the Via Rail journey at a little over two hours on the fastest direct services, which makes the train a practical alternative to the drive and removes the problem of parking in a dense downtown. We have already compared the two cities side by side in Ottawa vs Montreal: the editorial weekend comparison, so this section only covers the getaway angle.
Tourisme Montréal’s own pages name the three anchors of a first weekend: cobblestone Old Montréal, the Notre-Dame Basilica on Place d’Armes, and Mount Royal. A good first-time shape is Old Montréal and the basilica on the first afternoon, a long dinner on the first evening, and Mount Royal on the second morning for the view. Everything else is a neighbourhood choice, and Montreal rewards simply walking from one district to the next.
Montreal is also the gateway to the two other Quebec options in this guide. Tremblant is northwest of the city, and Quebec City lies 2.5 hours beyond it by car, so a Montreal weekend can easily become a longer trip with an extra night.
Quebec City: the Long Weekend
Quebec City asks for the most time and gives the most atmosphere. The city’s tourism office describes it as “only 2.5 hrs by car from Montréal”, and since Ottawa lies on the other side of Montreal, the whole journey is long enough that a Friday-afternoon departure is a poor idea. Treat it as a three-night trip, or drive up on Thursday evening.
The headline is Old Québec. UNESCO inscribed the Historic District of Old Quebec on the World Heritage List in 1985 (reference 300, criteria iv and vi), and the tourism office calls it “walkable and safe”. The Fairmont Le Château Frontenac is named in the tourism office’s Old Québec listings, and its history includes the Second Quebec Conference of 1944, attended by Churchill and Roosevelt, held in the Citadelle and at the nearby Château Frontenac.
A long weekend in Old Québec is best spent on foot: the lower and upper town, the ramparts, the Citadelle and the river views. For travellers who want more help with the French side of the trip, the network’s French-language guide to Quebec covers the province in more depth.
Which Trip for Which Traveller
If you want a weekend with the least friction, choose Kingston: the shortest drive, a compact downtown and a mix of indoor and outdoor options that survives bad weather. If you want to be looked after and to eat well, choose Prince Edward County, accepting the longer drive and the need for a car. If you travel with people who ski, hike or paddle, Mont-Tremblant gives everyone something to do from one base.
Couples who like cities should look at Montreal first, and at Quebec City when they have a third night to spare. Families with young children will usually be happier with Kingston or the resort, where distances on foot are short. Travellers who dislike driving should favour Montreal, because the train removes the road entirely.
None of these trips is wrong. The mistake is to pick a destination for its photographs and ignore the drive: a weekend that starts and ends in a long car journey leaves little time for the place itself. Match the distance to the number of nights you really have, and the choice largely makes itself.
Planning Notes for Any of the Five
A few habits make all of these trips smoother, whichever you choose.
- Check dates before you book. Seasonal attractions such as Fort Henry close for the winter, and park passes for Sandbanks have to be booked in advance.
- Confirm prices and hours directly. This guide deliberately quotes no admission or room rates, because they change and we have not verified current figures.
- Decide on car or train early. Kingston, Montreal and Quebec City suit rail travellers; Prince Edward County and Mont-Tremblant are far easier with a car.
- Leave slack on the way home. Do not plan a tight Monday morning after a long drive.
- Match the destination to the season. Tremblant is the one that flips completely between winter and summer; the County is a warm-season trip.
If none of these appeals, our day trips from Ottawa guide covers shorter options that need no hotel at all, from Wakefield to Montebello and Calabogie. Pick one destination, book one good place to sleep, and leave room to wander. That is the whole secret of a good weekend away from Ottawa.
Planning tip: drive times in this guide come from the destinations’ own tourism sites; check a route planner on the day, since traffic and winter weather can change them.
Frequently asked
Of the five destinations in this guide, Kingston is the closest by road: Destination Ontario gives the drive as 125 miles (200 kilometres) and about 2 hours. Montreal is also a short hop by train, but Kingston is the one that works equally well as a simple drive-and-stay trip.
Partly. Kingston and Montreal are served by Via Rail, and Quebec City can be reached by continuing from Montreal, so those three can work without a car (check current timetables). Prince Edward County is harder: its visitor site lists no direct train or bus from Ottawa and suggests taking Via Rail to Belleville, then a taxi, rental car or rideshare, with a weekday County Transit service between Belleville, Bloomfield and Picton. Mont-Tremblant is easiest with a car.
The County's own visitor site gives about 3 hours and 270 km (167 miles) from Ottawa. If you are combining it with Kingston, the stretch between the two is about 95 kilometres and roughly an hour, according to Destination Ontario.
It works better as a long weekend. Quebec City's tourism office describes the city as 2.5 hours by car from Montreal, and Ottawa sits on the other side of Montreal from it, so the full drive is long. Leave on Friday morning or take a Thursday night start if you want two clear days in Old Quebec.
It depends on the destination. Mont-Tremblant is a mountain resort with a pedestrian village and gondolas that serves skiers in winter and hikers and paddlers in summer and autumn. Prince Edward County is a warm-season destination built around wineries and Sandbanks Provincial Park. Kingston, Montreal and Quebec City are city trips that work in most seasons.