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Right in London
No car required. The Thames splits London into forks, and the city has protected a string of forest and wetland fragments — Environmentally Significant Areas — right along the banks.
20–75 minutes
A tank of gas and a Saturday
Provincial parks, conservation authority land, and Lake Huron beach towns, all close enough to be there for breakfast and home for dinner.
1–2 hours
Proper day trips
Lake Erie's shoreline and the deep Carolinian remnants of Norfolk County — worth the drive, and worth staying past sunset for.
Before you go
- Ontario Parks day-use runs roughly $14–$21 per vehicle; reserve campsites and yurts ahead for summer weekends at ontarioparks.ca.
- Conservation authority areas (Fanshawe, Wildwood, Longwoods, Elora Gorge, Shetland) usually charge a smaller parking fee, paid on site or by app.
- Point Pelee and Rondeau fill their parking lots during May warbler migration and September hawk flights — arrive early or take the shuttle at Pelee.
- Log what you see — eBird and iNaturalist both track sightings across this whole region and feed real conservation data.
- Kettle Point and Ipperwash Beach are on the traditional territory of the Chippewas of Kettle and Stony Point First Nation — beautiful, and worth visiting with that in mind.