Lots of concrete, fast food chains, souvenir shops, and lines of coaches with masses of tourists: the Niagara Falls – one of the most visited places in North America.
Located at the border between the state of New York, USA, and the Canadian province of Ontario, this group of three massive waterfalls attracts plenty of people from all over the world. I took a one day trip to Niagara when I visited a friend in Toronto. We solely stayed on the Canadian side of the Falls, so I cannot assess the American side. The Canadian side, however, is supposedly the “better” one, as (according to the internet) the Horseshoe Falls (aka Canadian Falls) are not easily seen from the American side, while the American side can be seen in its entirety from the Canadian side.
We skipped the city of Niagara Falls, located right at the Falls, because it didn’t look too exciting anyway. Being a mainly tourist-driven city, there are many hotels, casinos and souvenir shops, and it is probably a good spot if you want to stay several days to explore the surrounding.
But why would you stay more than one day? It’s just looking at some falls, right? You can come, take your pics to show off to your family that you have been to the Niagara Falls, buy some souvenirs, and then leave again after 2 hours or so… That’s at least what most people seemed to do there. Many tourist coaches arrived right at the main viewpoint. The selfie-addicted tourists jumped out, were more busy with taking pics than actually looking at the Falls, and soon after they got back into their buses to make space for the next batch. And indeed, right at the viewpoint, there doesn’t seem to be much else to do. The place is paved all over with concrete, which makes the Falls somewhat surreal: between all the tourists and man-made surroundings, they somehow appear artificial. I have to admit, at first I was a bit disappointed. But once I started ignoring the tourists and the Las Vegas-like city behind me, and started focusing on the nature, I finally found the beauty of this destination.
The Niagara River is surprisingly clear and has a wonderful bluish-green hue. The massive amounts of water running down the Falls are impressive and intimidating at the same time. And once you feel like you have stood long enough right by the Falls, there is more to do and explore around. One of the things to do at Niagara is probably the Maid of the Mist boat tour which brings you very close to the Falls. We didn’t do it, however, because being squeezed between all the tourists (as seen from above) seemed very uncomfortable. So we started looking for other, less crowded activities. We wanted to take the “Journey Behind the Falls” tour, where you go through a cave down to a lower part of the Canadian Fall and see is from behind. Unfortunately, we only arrived around noon to the booking desk, and by then they were booked out until late in the evening and we would have missed our bus back to Toronto. Therefore, I would recommend to try booking this ahead if possible or to go to the desk early in the morning.
There is more to explore when going away from the main viewpoint. South of the Falls we explored the Dufferin Islands – a beautiful public park where we found some local fauna like chipmunks, blue jays and even a red cardinal. North of the Falls, we went to the Whirlpool rapids, where you also can take boat tours very close to the centre of the rapids. This looked a lot more appealing than the Maid of the Mist tour, but we were running out of time before our bus would go back to Toronto and therefore we just enjoyed the view for a while. Had we had more time we would have taken a guided hiking tour through the nature around Niagara river, which sounded like a great thing to do.
Overall, we were not really prepared before going to Niagara. I wasn’t aware of the things one could do around there other than seeing the actual Falls. If I have the chance to go again one day, I would check in advance what I want to do, and how I can fit it into my time schedule, especially when having only one day. Because there is so much more to experience at Niagara Parks than taking half an hour of selfies of the Falls…
