Good Camping.

**Mrtanto** · 06-28-2012, 09:16 PM

Anyone know any good Camping/Hiking off the grid places around toronto? I'm looking to go out for 4-5 days camping and want to find a nice forest or park to go to thats not
to far so I thought id bring it here.

-Tanto

**theevilmike** · 06-28-2012, 11:17 PM

Hey Mrtanto
how far is too far from toronto? if you come a few hours north, you can find some decent crown land

**Mrtanto** · 06-29-2012, 06:55 AM

Anything 3+ plus hours (Got a short attention span in cars)

**mckrob** · 07-01-2012, 05:52 AM

Are you planning a car camping trip, hiking trip, or canoe trip?

**Spinerazor** · 07-01-2012, 05:59 AM

I'm in the Toronto area and camp all the time!, although i camp in places i'm sure you aren't supposed to camp ( down by the Credit River, 16 Mile Creek, Mimico, High Park etc), i call it urban camping and have been doing it for years, i don't know of any real camp areas besides the Milton area, i think that would be the closest to us.

**Doc13** · 07-01-2012, 09:18 PM

There are tons of campgrounds within 3hrs of Toronto. You can really get lost in Algonquin park!!

Here is a link to the map from Ontario Parks...

http://www.ontarioparks.com/english/ont_map.html

**theevilmike** · 07-01-2012, 09:55 PM

If you check out MNR website you can find out where the crown land is, theres tons of free camping to be had
http://crownlanduseatlas.mnr.gov.on.ca/clupa.html

**mckrob** · 07-02-2012, 06:17 AM

Try the Haliburton Highlands Water Trails, it's about 70,000 acres of crown/municipal land land with some fantastic canoeing, and is only about 2.5h drive north of Toronto. There are some remote sites you can get to by car, but most are accessible by canoe only. It's like Algonquin but with less people. I haven't been for a few years since they implemented the pay-per-use / reservation system, it requires you book an individual site each nite, that also meant you must stick to an itinerary when doing a canoe trip, the idea of which never sat well with me (having grown up nearby and being a "local", the idea of the municipality making money off this land never sat well with me either).

You can rent canoes locally. If you wanted to canoe into a site for a night or two, I'd recommend driving in the Sherbourne Lake access road and booking a site on Sherbourne Lake, most of the sites are good, but I usually stay at the east end.

Algonquin is great, and you can pick between canoe camping, back country camping, or car camping, but it does get busy in the summer. In my opinion, late fall / early winter are the best times to visit Algonquin when the tourists have all gone home! I used to do the Highland Trail or Western Uplands at least once a year, but it's been a couple of years now...

If you are a Canadian citizen/resident you can camp free on Crown Land (this has been amended to included non-residents who own property in Ontario), you can camp for up to three weeks on one site. Crown land is getting harder to find in southern Ontario, but head a little farther north and there's no end to it.