I’ve been there - Tobermory: real travel advice from someone who’s gone.
I’m going to assume that because you are reading this article you too have heard of Tobermory. I had heard of Tobermory in online news articles, social media feeds, and from people who had been there. I heard all about how beautiful it was and how much fun was to be had kayaking over shipwrecks, the hikes and lookout points and of course the iconic swimming! But here is what you need to know if planning a trip!
There’s a few things that everyone failed to mention and that would have been very helpful in planning our journey. Parking is challenging and you have to pay for everything! If you are wanting to do the hike to Lions Head you will need to make your parking reservation well in advance to park at the entry point. This will cost $20 and it is STRICTLY enforced. You do have the option to park on the main street and pay on street parking and hike into the start of the walk. (This will add another 30 min - 1 hour of walking depending on pace) In Tobermory (25 min drive from Lion's head) the street parking is reasonably priced in town at $3 an hour.
Lake Huron is incredibly beautiful, there’s no doubt about that! Bit if you want to go day of without a reservation your best bed it going early or later in the afternoon when crowds are thining out as again you need to have paid parking and admission. $20 parking and $10 per person admission. For the very popular places like the Grotto you will need to make your reservation at least a week in advance of your booking at the very latest. It books up and they will not let you drop in on the same day! The Grotto is where most of the infamous pictures of Tobermory come from! It is important to note that all of the provincial park parking is on per person admission and paid parking as well.
My absolute travel highlight from Tobermory was kayaking over the shipwreks. There are two different places to kayak to. If you’re up for a bit longer of a paddle you can see two very large shipwrecks, it was surprisingly a very eary feeling gliding over the surface looking down to the abandoned decaying wreck below. Words fall short to put all of my feelings into that, suffice to say it was an experiance and I would strongly reccommend it. Closer to shore where you can easily wade/swim out to are two smaller boats called the tugs. From the boat rental location if you follow the coast to the right not very far at all you will see a metal ladar from the street. If you go into the water from that ladder its only 50 feet of so into the water and on the left hand side to find the boats. If you’re not wanting to paddle to the far shipwrecks I would reccommend just jumping in the water and swimming to the two tugs. At the boat rental they say you need 2 hours to paddle to the far boats and 1 hour to the near ones. This isn’t true, we got to both locations in an hour total.
Now after all of this you are probably thinking : ok but what about food options? Tobermory / Lions head are very small towns. In Lions head there really isn’t much in way of food options, in Tobermory you do have a few places to choose from as well as a grocery store you can get a solid amount of basics at for anything you may have forgotten. In full transparency we didn’t have the best food luck, however there was a fish and chips place in Tobermory (litterally called the Fish and Chips place) and I thought it was good.
Would I reccommend a trip to Tobermory? Yes, only for the fact I would be dissapointed not to have seen it because of all the hype. However I will be frank it was very different from what I was expecting. What I would reccommend is take a day to see it, go kayaking for the afternoon and then take the ferry to Manitoulin!