Prince Edward Island

Look across the landscape – red dirt, green fields, blue ocean – and you could swear you're in Hawaii, not in eastern Canada. OK, so the field crop is potato, not sugar cane, and the water can freeze to the shoreline in winter, but Prince Edward Island has – hold onto your aloha shirt – fine beaches and nearly two dozen golf courses.

P.E.I., as the island is often called, is a perfect playground for bicycling and hiking, and working up an appetite has its rewards – perhaps Canada’s finest cuisine, based not just on potatoes but lobster, the island’s renowned blue mussels, and Malpeque oysters.

Music festivals (featuring the island's famed fiddlers) and storytelling festivals are regular events. And then there's that little redheaded girl. For many visitors, a trip to the island is a pilgrimage to the land of Anne of Green Gables, and the young heroine has spawned a thriving cottage industry. Not only is the green-gabled house that help inspire the famous turn-of-the-century novel by Lucy Maud Montgomery now part of P.E.I. National Park, but fans of Anne can also visit the author’s home – and attend a performance of the long-running (nearly 40 years) Anne of Green Gables musical.