If you’re looking to sunbathe on white sand beaches, sip cocktails from coconuts and swim in turquoise waters, you’re in the wrong place.
Prince Edward Island is an island – that much is true – but like everything in Canada, that rarely means the same thing it does elsewhere.
PEI offers a different kind of ‘island life’: quiet, welcoming and unhurried, where small pleasures and unexpected moments dictate the day.
Here, the trees shift with the passage of time and the scents of the season hang in the air; the cloying remnants of early morning rain in spring, a hint of smoke from log fires during fall and whispers of wildflowers on a summer breeze.
The streets unfold like a storybook, where each step taps softly against timeworn bricks and the salt-sweet air from the harbour clings to the dusk. The houses stand shoulder to shoulder, their colourful wooden shutters weaving a vibrant tapestry of small-town charm. Somewhere, piano music drifts faintly from an open window, conjuring the quiet hum of lived-in warmth unheard of in the city.
Everyone – and I mean everyone – lifts a hand or offers a smile, unhurried and sincere, their geniality a habit, not a hindrance.
But it is more than just a pretty picture. Prince Edward Island is full of things to do to keep even the most curious of travellers busy.
Here are just a few of them.
Disclosure: Harriet Solomon travelled to Prince Edward Island as part of a project with Tourism PEI.
Things to do on Prince Edward Island
Shuck an oyster
One of the best things to do on Prince Edward Island is take a Shuck and Sea tour at Raspberry Point Oysters.
When you order an oyster at a restaurant, there is a pretty good chance you’re somewhere nice. Tasteful music plays in the background, an expensive white clouds a rounded glass, and a hefty bill is issued by a man wearing a black tie once your dinner is done.
Luxury. Opulence. Sophistication.
These are the words that most associate with oysters.
At Raspberry Point, however, glamour is in short supply. James – the farm’s first and longest-serving employee – tells stories about diving under ice in -40° weather, braving the kind of cold where spray freezes before it lands and your eyelashes don’t stand a chance. Each oyster here is hand-sorted, inspected and nurtured for years before it reaches your plate.
Even today, when the workspace is frequented by tourists, Raspberry Point refuses to be polished. Shells crunch beneath your feet, and well-worn towels hang on bannisters, the musty aroma of seafood unmistakable. I felt it too – the roughness of the work – as I coaxed open casings with the flick of a knife, only stopping to savour the briny flesh when I had earned it.
Are oysters for everyone? I don’t think so. The texture takes some getting used to, and a rogue shard of shell is enough to keep most cautious.
But after a day at Raspberry Point, you’ll like them more than you ever expected to, not for their elegance, but for their honesty. Because once you understand where they come from – see the hands that sort them and touch the sea that grew them – it’s hard to look at them the same way. The glamour fades, but something better takes its place.
But yes, they’re still better with hot sauce.
Take a road trip
Prince Edward Island may be Canada’s smallest province – 5,656 km² to be exact – but it is still big enough to take a road trip.
Start in Charlottetown and wind your way towards Georgetown, a charming community located 52km east of the island’s capital. The drive is peppered with the oddities of rural life. A seventy-mile ‘yard sale’ where locals flog old crockery and broken toys for pocket change, pumpkin patches guarded diligently by weather-worn scarecrows and signs detailing the island’s fire ban, a necessary precaution for a place that received only 59% of its typical rainfall last summer. Maple-leaf flags sway gently overhead, and residents laze in the beds of their pick-ups, getting a head start on an evening at the drive-in movie theatre.
Driving on PEI offers a diversity of experiences. You’ll sip dirty sodas like a Mormon wife in training, take in the views at Covehead Harbour Lighthouse and scramble around sand dunes (not over them – you’re not allowed to clamber atop since islanders view the dunes as a natural barrier against harsh weather).
And as you drive, you’ll learn.
Did you know that Prince Edward Island has a large Buddhist population? Or that Amish communities are common – so woven into the fabric of island life that most locals buy their eggs from Amish families every Saturday?
Where else can you find monks, fishermen, travel writers and members of the Lennox Island First Nation coexisting under the same small-island sky? Here, diversity isn’t a divider; it’s part of what makes PEI special.
No matter where they came from, everyone will happily slurp an oyster linger around the table long after the plates are empty.
It is rather difficult not to love that.
Catch a fish
In Georgetown’s harbour, you’ll find a modest fishing vessel rocking gently in its berth, its paint sun-bleached and its rails polished smooth by hands and storms alike.
At its helm is Captain Perry.
Perry runs Tranquillity Cove Adventures, a remarkable organisation of saltwater cowboys who spend their days teaching weary tourists how to fish. His Irish lilt welcomes passengers aboard with the quiet ease of someone who has spent a lifetime living on these waters. For Perry – and much of PEI’s fishing community – the ocean has always meant home.
After countless unsuccessful attempts, I’d decided living off the land wasn’t for me. Content to sit back and watch my companions fish, I began to wind my rod and put an end to the bizarre humiliation ritual for good.
And then I felt a tug.
Reeling in a fish is surprisingly hard work. The people around me made it look easy, barely breaking a sweat as they lifted their catches onto the boat with a grace I found entirely unfamiliar.
My fish had other ideas. Flapping around like an animal that didn’t want to be cooked on a barbecue (fair enough, I suppose), the Jaws-like creature at the end of my fishing rod very nearly took me into the sea with it. I heaved and I ho’ed – Perry laughing at every grunt – before finally, finally, securing my lunch.
Perhaps it was the simplicity of the fare – huge fillets of mackerel adorned only in lemon pepper rub and consumed off paper plates – but I’m quite certain this is one of the best meals you can have on PEI.
Unpretentious and unabashedly itself, fishing with Tranquillity Cove Adventures is everything that is lovable about Prince Edward Island. Even if you aren’t a natural with a fishing rod.
Channel Anne of Green Gables
Thirty-two years ago, a young woman from just outside Yokohama crossed an ocean, not in search of beaches, seafood or some postcard version of island life, but drawn instead by the pull of a red-headed child with a wild imagination and a knack for trouble.
Hiroko, my host from Tourism PEI, came to Prince Edward Island for Anne – Anne of Green Gables, to be precise – the spirited heroine of Lucy Maud Montgomery’s 1908 novel, which takes place right here among the rolling fields of Canada’s smallest province. While most visitors arrive looking for lobster rolls and lighthouses, Hiroko followed a story.
That a book could spark a journey is remarkable enough.
That the journey never ended is something rarer still.
There’s a quiet resolve in the way Hiroko speaks about her decision, not as a grand gesture but as something inevitable: she read a book, got on a plane and never looked back.
Whether you’re as enamoured by a certain ginger orphan as my passionate host is irrelevant; even those unfamiliar with Montgomery’s work will be charmed by a morning spent wandering the farmstead that inspired Green Gables – a place Hiroko has visited more than 2,500 times.
With its rolling fields and quiet shores, it isn’t difficult to understand how PEI has inspired literature and those who love it for generations.
Shop for souvenirs in Charlottetown
Every weekend, Charlottetown hosts a pop-up market where local artisans can chat, sell and shop by the bay. Permanent stores open their doors early, allowing visitors to browse wind charms made of shells and soaps that smell like seawater. Flip-flop shops entice tourists to embrace the laidback lifestyle, and a kaleidoscope of colourful boats reflect the morning sun.
When I arrived – 30 minutes before opening – the pier was deserted aside from a few dedicated entrepreneurs setting up shop for the day. A woman named Jean, weathered and unbothered, nodded at me over a mountain of lobster.
She prepared her rolls with the grim efficiency of someone who’d seen things. I watched, mildly horrified, as she unpacked crate after crate of shellfish, wielding mayonnaise like a weapon. A few stalls down, an elderly lady arranged cartoon books in rigid rows. Thirteen titles, all her own. And right by the water’s edge, a man who could have been Ozzy Osbourne’s long-lost brother hung stickers from a washing line.
‘Sex, Drugs, and Lobster Rolls.’ Pretty funny if you ask me.
I didn’t partake in the shopping, nor could I have fit another souvenir in my suitcase if I wanted to, but for those seeking a keepsake of their time on PEI, there is no better place to look.
- Recommended reading: Autumn in Nova Scotia
Attend the annual International Shellfish Festival
I was lucky enough to visit PEI in September, the month of the island’s iconic International Shellfish Festival.
This annual event showcases the ocean’s delicacies and the work that goes into collecting them. Top chefs compete under the pressure of cameras and a stopwatch, whipping up a seafood-themed dish in the hopes of winning a $10,000 prize. Experts in tying buoys and socks race against the clock to demonstrate their craft as quickly as possible. And visitors browse the stands, tasting deep-fried mussels and lobster rolls as they go.
The lights were dim, the music was loud, and the drinks were flowing. Donning their rubber boots like dancing shoes, the hardy folk of the seas – fishermen, lobstermen, oyster harvesters and everything in between – took to the dance floor in a gorgeous, gritty celebration that will have you hook, line and sinker in no time at all.
Prince Edward Island: a culinary adventure
One of the best things to do on Prince Edward Island is eat.
Home to the Culinary Institute of Canada, PEI has long been praised for the quality and variety of its local ingredients. Dubbed the ‘chef’s sandbox’ by aspiring sous and run-of-the-mill foodies alike, here you’ll find established culinarians and 21-year-old-virtuosos leading the pack in a new era of Canadian cooking.
It’s difficult to eat badly here, but there are some spots that stand out amongst the rest.
At the PEI Preserve Company – an informal eatery housed in an old creamery – you’ll relax over silky seafood chowder, delicate cod fishcakes and raspberry pies dotted with mouthwatering dollops of champagne jam. At FiN Folk Food, order the lobster roll where butter constitutes a sauce, and the fish tacos melt in your mouth. The chocolate-coated chips from COWS Creamery are even better than they sound, and dinner doesn’t get much better than pork belly, scallops and roasted brussels sprouts from The Brickhouse Kitchen & Bar.
Nothing, though, compares to the culinary delights of the FireWorks Feast…
The FireWorks Feast
Every evening between May and October, the Inn at Bay Fortune hosts the FireWorks Feast.
Blending rustic luxury with a deep connection to the land, this unique communal dining experience features a daily changing menu with ingredients sourced locally from its eight-acre farm.
This is not a dinner; it is a spectacle.
Between 5 and 6, the grounds are yours to roam, with guests invited to sample an endless array of appetisers prepared by the team of chefs on site.
I started with ‘the idea of a pickle’ served from a bench. I wasn’t totally sure what I was eating, but I had no complaints. Next were duck hearts with a parsnip crumb and countless raw oysters topped with bloody mary ice.
Under a marquee down the hill, another chef served silver-grade bluefin tuna wrapped in lettuce. It was sweet, salty and sticky all at once. I cleared the palette with a rose negroni and dove in for one more.
Somewhere along the way, I had lost my travel companions. One had set up shop at the oyster bar, and another sipped wine, swilling like a man who could actually tell the difference between the taut, red-berry edge of a Rossignol Old Vines Rosé and the subtle oak of a Matos Chardonnay.
No matter, I had found my place.
Under a makeshift wooden hut, a woman not much older than me served pork shoulder tacos doused in tomato salsa. I took one, swallowed it whole, and reached for another.
‘No sauce for you, love?’
Before I could enquire as to the condiments on offer, she gestured to my left.
A hot sauce bar.
A raspberry plum that tingled on the tongue. Jalapeno garlic so moreish one could drink it by the glass. A bottle of ‘Satan’s sweat’ deemed so extreme it was kept beneath a cage. I’d have spent forever there if they’d let me.
But they would not. The meal was about to begin.
Every FireWorks Feast commences with a flagpole toast, where guests and chefs alike raise a glass of crisp bubbles to the evening sky and thank everyone involved in curating what is undoubtedly the most memorable culinary experience on Prince Edward Island.
Six courses followed, from a smoked beef brisket with a thyme-scented oxtail jus, to a cumin sugar buñelo atop an elegant scoop of pink peppercorn nogada.
This is not merely a restaurant. Though the long wooden tables and flickering candlelight might deceive the eye, the Inn at Bay Fortune is an atelier – a workshop where artists masquerading as chefs compose each dish before your eyes and diners are reminded that the act of creation is just as important as the final bite.
Put simply, come hungry. This is one heck of a meal.
Is Prince Edward Island worth visiting?
Prince Edward Island has a way of confounding travellers’ expectations.
Just when you think you’ve figured her out, she switches gears. She’s elusive, like maple syrup trickling through your fingers. Sticky enough to leave a mark, but with nothing tangible to grab onto. Satisfyingly sweet, but not so predictable in flavour that the sugar starts to burn the tongue. There are hints of something else, too. A woodiness that delights with every mouthful and darker, deeper notes that hint at history.
It’s packaged perfectly – in glass bottles the shape of maple leaves, designed to catch the eye of an eager tourist – but the first taste is nothing like you thought it would be.
Prince Edward Island may not resemble the Canada of brochures characterised by brown bears and snow-topped mountains, but it captures something far more enduring. Here, the country’s spirit is found in the generosity of its communities, in conversations that come easily and in the simple pleasure of seafood pulled fresh from the water.
That quiet warmth, those everyday delights and the sense that there’s always something unexpected waiting just around the corner feel unmistakably Canadian.
So, yes, Prince Edward Island is worth visiting. It’s just a matter of when.
More information
Discover more of the best things to do on Prince Edward Island on the Tourism PEI website.
For more information about Canada, check out our guide to Nova Scotia:
