Toronto

The currency is the Canadian dollar, and the price on the tag is never the final price: add 13% HST at the register on almost everything except unprepared market food. The 2026 ranges are coffee C$3–5, a beer at a bar C$8–12, a simple lunch C$15–22, an average dinner C$35–65 per person without drinks, a short rideshare trip C$15–25, and a mid-range downtown hotel room C$220–380 a night, plus about 6% municipal accommodation tax and the HST. Tipping isn't optional for table service: 15% is the floor, the card machine will suggest 18%, 20%, and 25%, and at a coffee counter nobody expects it. Contactless cards handle everything, including the streetcar, and cash is rare; if you need to withdraw, avoid the “white label” ATMs in convenience stores, which charge high fees, and use those of the five big banks. There's also a cost that comes before boarding, the entry authorization for Brazilians: the eTA costs C$7 and is valid for five years, but only for those who have held a Canadian visa in the last 10 years or hold a valid US nonimmigrant visa, and only for arrival by air. Anyone who doesn't qualify applies for a visitor visa, for C$100 plus C$85 for biometrics, with processing times that can run past two months.

From Pearson to downtown: the UP Express in 25 minutes

Pearson International Airport (YYZ) is 22 km to the northwest and has Terminals 1 and 3, with no Terminal 2. The UP Express links the airport to Union Station in 25 minutes, with departures every 15 min, for C$9.25 with Presto. A taxi or rideshare costs C$60–85 and takes 30 to 70 minutes, depending on the Gardiner. There's also the TTC's 900 bus to Kipling station for the regular fare, the cheapest and slowest option. Billy Bishop Airport (YTZ), on the island, handles regional flights and is a 10-minute walk from downtown through a pedestrian tunnel opened in 2015, or a 90-second ferry ride: the crossing is over before you can settle in. Union Station, from 1927, houses the GO regional trains and VIA Rail (Montreal about 5 hours, Ottawa about 4 hours 30 minutes, New York about 12 hours).

TTC subway and light rail on five lines, with Line 1 shaped like a U

Five TTC rapid transit lines cross the city: three subway lines, Line 1 Yonge-University (a U shape), Line 2 Bloor-Danforth (east-west), and Line 4 Sheppard, and two light rail lines, Line 5 Eglinton, opened on February 8, 2026, after more than a decade of construction, and Line 6 Finch West, opened on December 7, 2025. On top of those there are 11 streetcar lines and a dense bus network, with the Blue Night overnight network from 2am to 5am, and the subway runs from about 6am (8am on Sundays) until about 1:30am. The fare is flat, C$3.30, paid with a Presto card, a contactless credit or debit card, or a phone, and it includes unlimited transfers for 2 hours; the physical Presto card costs C$4 and can be added to your phone for free, and the day pass costs about C$13.50. Since August 31, 2026, after 47 paid trips in a month, the rest are free. The 501 Queen is the longest streetcar route in North America, and when it stops with its doors open, cars behind it are required to stop. Downtown is flat and walkable, the PATH covers 30 km of underground passageways, useful in winter, and Bike Share Toronto has thousands of bikes at docking stations. The bike lanes on Bloor, Yonge, and University have been a political and legal fight since 2024, so check the current layout before planning your route.

Toronto has low violent crime rates by North American standards: the homicide rate usually hovers around 2 per 100,000 people, close to that of big European cities, and the real risk for visitors is theft, rarely violence. What happens most is bike theft, phone snatching at subway doors just as they close, and break-ins to parked cars; the wave of vehicle thefts from residential garages since 2023 doesn't affect pedestrians. The east-downtown area around Moss Park, Sherbourne, and Dundas East, plus some subway stations, sees visible drug use and mental health crises, an uncomfortable scene but rarely aimed at passersby, which calls for attention rather than a detour. In the early hours of Friday and Saturday, the Entertainment District (King and Richmond, between Spadina and John) sees fights as the clubs let out between 2am and 3am, so leave earlier or call a taxi or rideshare to the door. The biggest physical risk of the year is ice on the sidewalks in January and February, and boots with rubber soles prevent most falls. Two scams repeat themselves: clipboards collecting fake donations at Yonge and Dundas, and unlicensed drivers at the airport who say the “machine is broken”; use the official taxi line or an app. The emergency number is 911; for city services, 311.

Stop behind the streetcar

When a streetcar opens its doors in the middle of the street, the cars behind it must stop by law until the last passenger reaches the sidewalk. On foot, you step straight onto the asphalt and cross without rushing; honking is considered aggressive.

Stand right on the escalator

On the subway, people standing still keep to the right and leave the left clear for those walking up. On platforms, wait beside the door and let everyone out before boarding.

The tip is part of the bill

15% is the minimum at table-service restaurants, 18% is the suggested standard, and the card machine calculates it on the total including tax. At cafés, food trucks and counters, no one expects a tip.

The tax comes after

Sales tax is added at the register and doesn't appear on the price tag or the menu, because that's the pricing convention across all of Canada. No one is trying to trick you when the total goes up.

“Sorry” doesn't admit fault

“Sorry” works as “excuse me,” “coming through,” and “apologies for existing here,” and it's said even by the person who got bumped. Answering with another “sorry” closes the matter.

Where you can't smoke

Ontario law bans smoking tobacco and cannabis (legal since 2018, minimum age 19) on bar and restaurant patios, playgrounds, sports courts and within 20 m of those areas, plus 9 m of hospital entrances. It's allowed on sidewalks, but smoking in line or at a bus stop draws looks.

Trying to cross a 630 km² city on foot

Treating Toronto as walkable end to end. It's 630 km², and Yonge Street runs more than 20 km within the city limits. It's easy to start walking a stretch and give up halfway, without ever leaving the same neighborhood. Plan by corridor (Queen, Bloor, Danforth, Eglinton) and use the subway and streetcar to jump between them.

A wool coat doesn't cut it at −8 °C

Underestimating winter and the lake wind. At −8 °C with gusts, a wool coat won't do: you need a windbreaker, a hat, gloves and waterproof boots with rubber soles, because the sidewalk freezes over. On the plus side, you can cross a good chunk of downtown through the PATH without stepping outside.

Planning visits to museums that have closed

Planning to visit museums that no longer exist. The Ontario Science Centre closed in June 2024 over structural roof risk, and its Ontario Place replacement isn't due until the end of the decade. Confirm hours and renovations (ROM, Casa Loma, the market) before heading out.

The Jack Layton line can run past an hour

Leaving the crossing to the islands for a summer Saturday afternoon, when the line stretches out with no warning. Buy the ticket ahead of time and avoid the rush.

C$40 becomes C$53 with HST and tip

Budgeting at sticker prices. A dinner advertised at C$40 becomes about C$53 with 13% HST and an 18% tip, and the hotel's nightly rate picks up another 6% or so in municipal tax. Add this in from day one, or the bill arrives as a surprise every night.

Washroom

Bathroom. “Toilet” and “bathroom” sound odd in a public setting; ask “where's the washroom?”

Double-double

Coffee with two sugars and two creams: the standard counter order

Loonie / toonie

The C$1 coin (with a loon engraved on it) and the C$2 coin

The Ex

The Canadian National Exhibition, the late-August fair at Exhibition Place

The 6ix

The city's nickname, popularized by Drake, referring to the six municipalities merged in 1998

Sorry (soh-ri)

Works as “excuse me,” “pardon me” and “heads up”; doesn't imply admitting fault

The glacial step, the rivers and the ravines

Toronto sits on a plain of glacial till that descends in gentle steps to Lake Ontario, 76 m above sea level. The most visible step is the old shoreline of glacial Lake Iroquois, formed about 12,000 years ago: it's the escarpment that Davenport Road follows and where Casa Loma was planted, 30 m above downtown. Four river systems cut through the plain (the Humber to the west, the Don through the center, the Rouge and Highland Creek to the east) and have carved about 11,000 hectares of ravines that, after the 1954 Hurricane Hazel, were banned from development and became the largest connected system of urban parks in North America. The Toronto Islands were a sand peninsula until an 1858 storm opened the eastern channel.

The concession grid and Yonge

The urban fabric follows the British agricultural concessions: east-west avenues every 2 km (Bloor, St. Clair, Eglinton, Lawrence, Sheppard, Finch, Steeles), with Yonge Street as the north-south axis that splits the numbering into “east” and “west”. Downtown is an almost perfect grid, flat and easy to read.

The expressways: Gardiner, Don Valley, and the 401

Onto that grid came three layers of infrastructure: the Gardiner Expressway (1955–1966), which cut the city off from the lake; the Don Valley Parkway through the valley; and Highway 401, which widens to 18 lanes in the city's north and is one of the busiest highways on the continent.

Film, TIFF, and theater

TIFF was born in 1976 as the Festival of Festivals, gathering the best films from other festivals, and today it's the biggest commercial showcase for film in North America, with an audience award that often foreshadows the Oscars; TIFF Lightbox, at King and John, works as a year-round cinematheque. The city films so much for others (from “Videodrome” to series that pretend to be New York, Chicago, or Boston) that it earned the nickname Hollywood North. In theater, Mirvish runs historic houses like the Royal Alexandra (1907) and the Princess of Wales, and the district is often cited as the third-largest English-language theater hub, after London and New York.

Live music, from Massey Hall to Scarborough rap

Live music runs through historic venues: Massey Hall (1894, closed in 2018 for renovation and reopened in 2021), the Horseshoe Tavern (1947, where everyone from Willie Nelson to the Rolling Stones has played), El Mocambo, the Danforth Music Hall and Roy Thomson Hall (1982), home of the Toronto Symphony. In the 2000s the city exported Broken Social Scene and Feist; in the 2010s, Drake and The Weeknd, who fixed “the 6ix” in the global vocabulary and changed the city's symbolic geography. Toronto rap speaks of the housing complexes of Scarborough and North York, not downtown. In literature, Margaret Atwood, Michael Ondaatje, Dionne Brand, Austin Clarke and Catherine Hernandez wrote the city from the ravines, immigrant labor and the periphery.

The Maple Leafs, no Stanley Cup since 1967, still sell out

The Maple Leafs (NHL) haven't won the Stanley Cup since 1967 and still sell out the arena; the Blue Jays won the World Series in 1992 and 1993 and play at Rogers Centre, the world's first stadium with a fully functional retractable roof (1989); the Raptors won the NBA title in 2019 and drew something like 1 to 2 million people to the parade at Nathan Phillips Square; and Toronto FC took the MLS Cup in 2017. The Hockey Hall of Fame occupies the former 1885 Bank of Montreal branch at Yonge and Front. Outside downtown, the Aga Khan Museum (2014, designed by Fumihiko Maki, in Don Mills) is the only museum in North America devoted to Islamic and Persian art.

In the Skin of a Lion (Michael Ondaatje, 1987)

A novel about the Macedonian and Italian immigrants who built the Bloor Viaduct (1918) and the R. C. Harris water treatment plant; it tells the city through the invisible labor that built it.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (Edgar Wright, 2010)

Filmed entirely in Toronto and, unlike the rest of Hollywood North, without pretending to be another city: Casa Loma, Lee's Palace, Sneaky Dee's and winter on Bathurst appear under their own names.

Take Care (Drake, 2011)

The album that fixed “the 6ix” in the global vocabulary and shifted the city's symbolic center to the housing complexes of Scarborough and North York.