Guides
Straight answers about this corner of Georgian Bay.
Seven guides to planning a stay in this part of Ontario. They are written to be useful whether or not you ever book this house — which is the only reason anybody would link to them.
- Ski and winterPlanning a ski weekend for ten peopleWhich hills near Collingwood sell lift tickets and which are private member clubs — plus how to organise a group of ten without one person carrying all of it.
- CorporateHow to plan a company retreatTwo nights, one working day, six to twelve people, and an agenda booked to sixty per cent. Where the money goes, and when a resort is the better call.
- Groups and familiesSharing a house with another familyThe four things to agree before anybody pays a deposit, why bathrooms matter more than bedrooms, and how to book for three generations.
- Getting hereA weekend away from TorontoWhat the drive is really like, which route suits which side of the GTA, and how this region compares with Muskoka and Prince Edward County.
- Ski and winterWinter near Blue Mountain, without skiingFor the half of the group that does not ski: the spa, skating and tubing at the resort, snowshoes and Nordic trails, and somewhere warm in town.
- HikingBruce Trail day hikes around the Beaver ValleyThe Old Baldy lookout, Eugenia and Hoggs Falls, and the rules on dogs, parking and private land, from the people who manage the trail.
- Choosing a baseWhere to stay near Blue MountainThe village, Collingwood, Thornbury or Meaford: how far each is from the hill, what kind of trip each suits, and when our house is the wrong choice.
Why these seven
Because they are the seven questions we are asked, and because each one has an answer that is either missing from the internet or buried under a listicle. The ski guide states which hills on this escarpment are private, which almost nothing written about skiing in this region does. The retreat guide argues for a shorter agenda than any venue would recommend. The family guide is mostly about money and bedtimes. The winter and hiking guides name only what the operators and land managers publish themselves, and link to them. The where-to-stay guide compares the towns fairly, including the trips our house is wrong for.
They are not here to rank for a keyword and funnel you at a booking form. If one of them saves you an argument on day two of a shared holiday, it has done its job.
If you are further along than reading, the company retreat guide and the guide to the drive from Toronto are the two people come back to. There is also a page about who you would be booking with.
A southern Georgian Bay travel guide, written by people who live with it.
Most Georgian Bay travel guides are written from a desk. These are not. They cover the Blue Mountain area, Grey County and the towns along this shore, and they are specific about the things that catch people out — which ski hills you can buy a ticket for, what the drive from Toronto is really like on a Friday, how many bathrooms a group of ten needs before mornings become a negotiation.
These are Ontario cottage planning guides: what a weekend involves, what it costs, and what catches people out. The area pages work as a Grey County visitor guide alongside them. If you are planning a stay in southern Georgian Bay and want the practical version, not the brochure, start with whichever of these is closest to your trip.
Keeping them honest
What gets re-checked, and how often.
The part of these guides most likely to go stale is ski access. Member clubs occasionally change what they will sell and to whom, and an out-of-date sentence here would send somebody to a gate they cannot get through. Every club named in the ski guide is re-checked against what the club itself publishes before each season, and each is named as private rather than listed alongside the public hill as though the two were interchangeable.
Drive times are given as ranges rather than a single number, because the honest answer to “how far is it from Toronto” depends on which side of the city you start from and whether it is a Friday. Costs are given as ranges for the same reason, and are stated as what a thing tends to cost rather than a price we are offering.
Where something is not known, the guides say so instead of estimating. That is the same rule the rest of this site runs on, and it is why a few lines here read as “to be confirmed” rather than as a confident number nobody has checked.
Questions about these guides
Who writes these guides?
Are they useful if I am not staying at The Collingview?
How current are they?
Why only seven guides?
What if my question is not in any of them?
Which of Ontario’s weekend getaways is best depends on what you want the drive to be worth, and the answer moves with the season. These guides are about this region rather than everywhere in the province, and read together they make a weekend itinerary for southern Georgian Bay. The corporate guide goes further: how to plan an executive or leadership retreat, what an agenda should leave out, and why most team-building exercises are worse than a long dinner and an early finish. If you need ideas rather than a venue, start there.
Ask us something specific.
If you are planning a stay and the guides have not answered it, write to us. We would rather answer a real question than publish a generality.