Canada
The second-largest country on earth, and one where the distances are the point — the Rockies and their glacial lakes, Niagara, two big-city cultures in Toronto and Vancouver, and a French-speaking Québec that feels like another country entirely.
A country you cross,
not one you cover
Canada is the second-largest country in the world and it stretches across six time zones, so the first thing to understand is that a Canada trip is a choice between regions rather than a tour of the whole. The Rocky Mountains in the west, the cities and Niagara in Ontario, French-speaking Québec in the east and the Atlantic provinces beyond it are each a full holiday, and Toronto to Vancouver is a five-hour flight or four nights on a train.
For Indian travellers it is one of the easiest long-haul countries to be in. Toronto and Vancouver have some of the largest Indian communities outside India, which means Indian food of every regional kind, Indian groceries in ordinary supermarkets and Punjabi, Gujarati, Tamil and Hindi spoken in the suburbs. Non-stop flights connect Delhi with both cities. English is spoken everywhere except rural Québec, where French dominates and a few words go a long way.
The one thing that needs a long run-up is the visitor visa. Indian passport holders need a full Temporary Resident Visa for every mode of travel, Canada does not extend its eTA short-cut to Indian citizens, and IRCC publishes processing times only as a live tool that varies by country. Start it first, and the rest of the trip is straightforward.
When is your Canada?
A true four-season country, and a big one — Vancouver can be mild while Montréal is at minus twenty. Summer is the safe answer; autumn and winter are the interesting ones.
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Canada visa — what you need to know
Indian passport holders need a visitor visa — Canada calls it a Temporary Resident Visa (TRV) — to visit or transit through Canada by any means of travel. The application is made online with Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), and fingerprints and a photograph are given in India after applying. Everything below is taken from IRCC's own pages on canada.ca.
Canada lets citizens of a short list of visa-required countries apply for an electronic travel authorisation (eTA) instead of a visa when flying in, provided they meet certain requirements. IRCC publishes that list in full — Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Brazil, Costa Rica, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, Panama, Philippines, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Seychelles, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago and Uruguay — and India is not on it. Some agency websites still describe an eTA route for Indian citizens who hold a US visa; canada.ca does not, so plan for the full visitor visa regardless of what other visas your passport carries.
IRCC states that a visitor visa may be valid for up to a maximum of ten years, or until your passport or your biometrics expire, whichever comes first, and that the officer decides whether it is single- or multiple-entry and how long it is valid for. On each visit most visitors can stay for up to six months; the border services officer may allow less or more and will write the date in your passport if so. A multiple-entry visa is what makes Canada easy to combine with a US trip.
The visitor visa processing fee is CAN$100 per person, or CAN$500 for a family of five or more applying together. The biometrics fee is CAN$85 per person, capped at CAN$170 for a family applying at the same time. Both are paid by credit or debit card at the end of the online application. Children under fourteen and applicants over seventy-nine are exempt from biometrics. The visa application centre in India that takes your fingerprints charges its own service fee, which canada.ca does not publish.
IRCC does not publish a fixed processing time for Indian applications. Its visitor visa page says "varies by country" and points to an online checker that is updated as the queue changes, and it states that the figure shown does not include the time it takes you to give biometrics. Treat whatever the tool shows as a minimum, add the biometrics appointment and the return of your passport, and start months rather than weeks before you want to travel.
For all Canada journeys we design, we prepare your complete visa documentation package — the forms, the supporting documents, the sequence of submission. Our visa specialists help travellers prepare complete applications with careful document guidance. Final visa decisions always remain with the relevant authorities.
Travel Canada intelligently
Canada is safe, orderly and easy. The three things that catch Indian travellers out are the visa timeline, the distances and the price of everything once tax and tip are added.
Canada travel FAQ
The questions Indian travellers ask most often before booking Canada.
Canada for every kind
of traveller
The regions are a flight apart and each carries a full trip on its own. These are the combinations that actually work rather than a list of everything in the country.
Banff National Park, Canada's first, with Lake Louise and Moraine Lake, then the Icefields Parkway north to Jasper past the Columbia Icefield.
The CN Tower, the Toronto Islands and the Distillery District, then a day at Niagara where the Horseshoe Falls face the Canadian side.
French Canada. Montréal for food, festivals and Old Montréal; Québec City for the only walled city north of Mexico, UNESCO-listed since 1985.
A city between mountains and sea: Stanley Park, Granville Island, the Capilano suspension bridge, with Whistler and Vancouver Island within reach.
Rocky Mountaineer from Vancouver to Banff or Jasper in daylight over two days, or VIA Rail's The Canadian across the whole country from Toronto to Vancouver.
Polar bears at Churchill on Hudson Bay, belugas in the same water in summer, whales at Tadoussac and off Vancouver Island, and the aurora from Yellowknife.
Late September to mid-October in Ontario and Québec, when the maples turn — Algonquin Park, the Laurentians, the Eastern Townships and the drive between Montréal and Québec City.
Nova Scotia's Cabot Trail and Peggy's Cove, Prince Edward Island, and the Bay of Fundy, where the highest tides on earth empty and refill twice a day.
Canada is one of the easiest long-haul countries for children: safe, clean, English-speaking, with wildlife, boats, gondolas and Indian food never far away.
Tell us whether it is mountains, cities, French Canada, a train across the country or family in Toronto with a holiday attached, and our travel designers will shape the route around that.
How far in advance
should you book Canada?
Two things drive the Canadian timeline: the visitor visa, for which IRCC publishes no fixed processing time, and the short Rockies summer, when a handful of small mountain towns absorb most of the country's visitors.
Online with IRCC, then biometrics in India. Processing time is a live tool that varies by country; begin months ahead.
Rockies, Ontario and Québec, the west coast, or a train across all of it. The season follows the choice.
Banff, Lake Louise, Jasper lodges and Rocky Mountaineer sell out first. Everything else has capacity.
Non-stop Delhi flights are daily; book once the visa is in the passport, not before.
What to pack
for Canada
The suitcase depends entirely on the month and the region. A July trip to the Rockies and a February trip to Québec share almost nothing, and even summer in the mountains needs a warm layer.
Layers beat one heavy coat in every season. Mountain mornings are cold in July, city shops and trains are heated hard in January, and the temperature can move twenty degrees in a day.