I am 25 years old, have a weird obsession with waterfalls, and have never seen the most powerful one in North America—Niagara Falls. Seeing as how it is only a six hour drive from my hometown, and Josh has had a weird obsession with visiting Canada, it was definitely a weekend adventure I had to fit into my crammed schedule at some point this summer. Josh and I love to travel but hate to spend money, so with the combination of a hotel groupon deal and a free, spectacular sight to see, we picked a weekend I had off work and made the drive up to the Canadian side of the falls.
What can I say, the falls were awesome. They are truly a sight worth seeing. The amount of water rushing over the edge of the cliff every single second is mind blowing. There is a long sidewalk where you can get different views of the falls. It didn’t even matter that it was a cloudy/rainy day because we got wet from the mist of the falls anyway. Seeing them at night was awesome too. There are huge spot lights that change colors and light up the falls. The experience is surreal and definitely worth making a second trip to the falls for.
We aren’t really the kind of people who are into the tourist traps. There was a 4-pack of attractions to do involving the falls which I’m sure was great, but not something we were willing to blow $100 on. The only thing I wish we would have done is the boat ride on the Maid of the Mist where a boat takes you right up to the falls (you get to wear a poncho) to get drenched from the mist exploding up from the water crashing down and see the falls from below instead of above. Also, I would have loved to see the sun rise over the falls. However, it’s difficult for us to wake up at 9 am, let alone 6 am so we missed out on that experience.
The area surrounding the falls is every attraction and distraction and tourist trap and souvenir shop you could dream of. If you’ve never been to things like Ripley’s Believe it or Not or the moving movie theater, these things might be worth the time/money. However, we chose to drive to Toronto to check out that city instead of spending money to stand in line and go through an overpriced attraction that we weren’t that interested in.
In the evening after checking out the falls all lit up, we started trekking through town to find a low key bar to end our night. The area was surprisingly lacking in these, but thankfully on our drive back to the hotel we passed a small bar at the end of a strip of random shops that was within walking distance. So we parked the car and walked over to just the kind of scene we were looking for–a place to sit back, relax, drink some Canadian beer (which may or may not have been Coors Light with a different label on it) and listen to a live band.
Overall opinion: The falls were awesome. The drive there and back was terribly boring. I wish I could have hiked down the sides of the cliffs surrounding the falls and found a nice little spot to sit and be mesmerized by the falls for hours enjoying the beautiful nature without thousands of humans milling around trying to get pictures from every angle. Other than the falls, if you’re not into tourist traps there really isn’t much to do there. If I ever go back it will probably be a stop on the way to somewhere else, but it’s definitely something I think everyone should see at least once.