Visit the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. Explore collections spanning history, politics, sport, art and entertainment, and encounter stories that illuminate the breadth of African American life.

Part of the Smithsonian Institution, the museum is devoted to documenting African American history and culture and their central place in the nation’s story. Its exhibitions invite reflection on both lived experience and lasting cultural influence.

Join your Travel Director and fellow travellers for a celebration dinner in Washington, D.C. Raise a toast together and share the moments and discoveries that have stayed with you.

More than a standard meal, this hosted gathering makes space for conversation across the group. In the nation’s capital, it offers a convivial setting to reflect on the Canadian and American places explored throughout the journey.

Insight Vacations

• 6 Dinner (D)
• 13 Breakfast (B)
• 1 Lunch (L)

• Ottawa: Gain new culinary skills and learn more about regional cuisine with a local chef during a cooking demonstration at C’est Bon.
• New York City: This late afternoon, enjoy a visit to Essex Market, a cornerstone of the Lower East Side for over 100 years. Meet and hear the stories of local vendors while tasting their noteworthy specialties from around the world. Enjoy and learn from a live cooking demonstration while hearing how our visit to this non-profit run market contributes to countless programs aimed to provide quality, affordable food to the community and foster entrepreneurship as well as economic development.  

• Embark on a cruise to the base of Niagara Falls.
• Visit historic Kingston • Notre-Dame Basilica of Montreal • Ile d’Orleans • Quebec City • Acadia National Park • Kennebunkport • Boston’s Freedom Trail • Times Square in NYC • Philadelphia’s Liberty Bell • Washington D.C.
• City tours of Montreal, Quebec City and New York City with Local Experts; Washington, D.C.
• Welcome Dinner in Toronto • Cooking Demonstration and three-course Highlight Dinner in Ottawa • Celebration Dinner in Washington, D.C.

• Top-rated dining, from farm-to-table to local restaurants
• 4 & 5-star stays
• Business class coach with extended leg room

Discover Toronto’s city sights on an introduction to Ontario’s lakeside capital. Take in the contrast between its modern skyline and established neighbourhoods, getting a sense of the city beyond its best-known tower.

Set on the shore of Lake Ontario, Toronto is Canada’s largest city and a meeting place of cultures reflected in its streets and food scene. This sightseeing experience offers a useful perspective on the city’s scale and character.

Share a welcome dinner with wine in Toronto and meet your fellow travellers over a meal inspired by Canadian specialties. It is a hosted introduction to the people joining you on the journey.

Toronto’s varied dining scene reflects the many communities that have shaped Canada’s largest city. Conversation around the table gives this dinner a distinctly social purpose, with local flavours providing a first taste of the country.

Explore Niagara-on-the-Lake, a small Ontario town with tree-lined streets, flower displays and well-preserved 19th-century buildings. Enjoy time to take in its historic architecture and the setting near Lake Ontario.

The town sits in the heart of Niagara wine country, where vineyards and a gentler pace offer a contrast to the nearby falls. Its streets retain the character of an older Canadian community rather than a modern resort.

Cruise towards the base of Niagara Falls aboard an eco-catamaran for a close view of the cascading water. Hear the roar and feel the cool mist as the boat approaches one of North America’s most powerful natural sights.

From the river, the scale of the falls becomes tangible: water pours over the brink above while spray rises around the vessel. This is a water-level perspective that no distant viewpoint can offer.

View the historic limestone buildings of Kingston, including its churches and fortifications. This introduction brings the city’s nickname, the Limestone City, into focus through the pale stone used across its older streets.

At the meeting of Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River, Kingston has long held strategic importance. Its surviving architecture offers a visible record of that past, giving travellers more to look for than a brief glimpse of the waterfront.

Cook with a chef from C’est Bon Cooking School during a hands-on demonstration focused on regional ingredients and sustainable food practices. Learn how flavours such as maple sugar, haskaps and Labrador tea can shape a Canadian menu.

At the Just Food barn, you may lend a hand before enjoying a three-course, gluten-free vegetarian dinner paired with wine. The experience connects the meal on your plate with foraging, farming and local culinary knowledge.

Explore Ottawa’s stately boulevards on a tour of Canada’s capital. See how the city’s broad streets and civic setting express its role as the seat of national government.

Ottawa lies beside the Ottawa River, where English- and French-speaking Canada meet. A guided introduction helps place the capital’s formal streets in context, revealing a city shaped by both its national responsibilities and its waterfront location.

Walk through Old Montréal with a Local Expert, taking in its cobbled streets, lively squares and historic architecture. See the Old Port and Place Jacques-Cartier, and discover another perspective on the city around Mount Royal.

French colonial roots remain visible beneath Montréal’s contemporary street life. The old quarter’s stone buildings and the views from Mount Royal show two sides of a city whose history and present-day culture sit close together.

Step inside Montréal’s Notre-Dame Basilica to see its richly decorated Gothic Revival interior. Look up at the deep-blue ceiling scattered with golden stars and admire the colour and detail of its stained-glass windows.

In Old Montréal, the basilica is closely tied to the city’s religious and architectural history. Its elaborate interior turns a visit into an encounter with the craftsmanship and ambition of 19th-century Montréal.

Taste maple syrup at a traditional sugar shack and enjoy a lunch built around French-Canadian favourites. Learn about the sweet ingredient harvested and prepared on-site as you experience the warmth of cabane à sucre hospitality.

Sugar shacks grew from Québec’s maple-harvesting traditions, when families and neighbours gathered during the spring sap run. The setting gives this meal a cultural purpose: it is a chance to savour a regional custom where maple is part of everyday heritage.

Choose to explore Montmorency Falls Park near Québec City, where water plunges 84 metres towards the St. Lawrence River. Cross the suspension bridge above the falls for a view of the rushing water below.

The falls stand roughly 30 metres higher than Niagara Falls, though their setting and shape are entirely different. Those keen for a closer, more active look can take the panoramic staircase along the cliff. This is one of two included Québec City Insight Choice activities.

Choose a guided copper art studio visit near Québec City and watch a demonstration of repoussé, the technique of shaping designs by working metal from its reverse side. Try the tools and a thin sheet of copper yourself.

Learn how the Gilles family has passed down its metalworking skills for more than 90 years, and examine finished pieces before making your own. This hands-on encounter with a living craft is one of two included Québec City Insight Choice activities.

Discover Old Québec with a Local Expert, seeing the Plains of Abraham, City Hall and Place Royale, with views of the grand Château Frontenac. Learn how the streets and public spaces tell the story of one of North America’s oldest European settlements.

Old Québec’s fortified historic district is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Its stone buildings, steep terrain and enduring French-speaking culture give the city a character unlike anywhere else on this journey.

Enjoy a Highlight Dinner in historic Old Québec with your fellow travellers. An intimate setting makes the meal an opportunity to share conversation while spending an evening in the city’s historic heart.

Québec’s French-speaking heritage is felt in its streets and dining culture alike. Around the table, the atmosphere of the old quarter becomes part of the experience, distinguishing this hosted dinner from a routine evening meal.

Follow part of Boston’s Freedom Trail with your Travel Director, tracing the red-brick route through sites connected to the American Revolution. See landmarks including the Old State House and learn about the meeting house associated with planning the Boston Tea Party.

The route links places where arguments over colonial rule became events that changed a nation. Boston’s historic streets make those stories easier to picture than dates and names alone.

Choose to visit SUMMIT One Vanderbilt in Midtown Manhattan for high-level views across the New York skyline, including the Chrysler Building. Move through immersive spaces that use reflective surfaces, optical effects and art installations to alter your sense of the city.

An outdoor viewing area offers another perspective and room for skyline photographs. This experience pairs contemporary design with an elevated city view and is one of two included New York Insight Choice activities.

Choose a guided walk through Midtown Manhattan, beginning at Grand Central Terminal and exploring the architecture and stories of the surrounding streets. See the Theater District, Radio City Music Hall, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Rockefeller Center and Fifth Avenue.

From Grand Central’s transport legacy to Rockefeller Center’s Art Deco design, these landmarks reveal different ambitions behind New York’s familiar skyline. The approximately 2.5-hour walk is one of two included New York Insight Choice activities.

Explore New York City with a Local Expert for an introduction to the metropolis beyond its skyline. Gain a local perspective on the streets and neighbourhoods that give the city its restless energy.

New York has been shaped by successive waves of arrivals, commerce and cultural change. A guided city tour helps connect its well-known sights with that broader story, offering context for the places travellers may recognise from photographs, films and books.

Meet vendors and taste their specialties at Essex Market on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Hear their stories during a food tour and watch a live cooking demonstration that brings ingredients and techniques into focus.

A neighbourhood fixture for more than a century, the market reflects the Lower East Side’s many food traditions. Learn how this nonprofit-run space also supports access to affordable food and opportunities for local entrepreneurs.

Explore Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia with your Travel Director and visit the Liberty Bell. See its famous crack and the inscription calling on people to “proclaim liberty.”

The surrounding historic district preserves places central to the founding of the United States. Standing before the bell offers a chance to consider how an object once used for public announcements became an enduring symbol of freedom.

Tour Washington, D.C.’s national landmarks, viewing the White House, Washington Monument and National Mall. Visit the Lincoln Memorial and World War II Memorial to reflect on defining chapters of American history.

The capital’s broad avenues and monuments were designed to give national ideals a physical presence. Seeing these sites together helps reveal how the city commemorates leadership, conflict and service in its public spaces.

Fly above Niagara Falls on an optional helicopter experience for an aerial view of the river and surrounding landscape. Look out for the Whirlpool Rapids, Rainbow Bridge, American Falls and the curved brink of the Canadian Horseshoe Falls.

From above, the waterways and viewpoints fit together in a way they cannot from the shore; mist may reveal rainbows when conditions are right. This experience is at additional cost and bookable on tour.

Visit the CN Tower for panoramic views over Toronto’s skyline and Lake Ontario. Explore visual exhibits that tell the story of the tower’s construction and its place in the city.

Built as a communications tower, it has become Toronto’s most recognisable landmark. Its elevated viewpoint reveals the city’s lakeside setting and street grid from a striking angle. This optional visit is at additional cost and bookable on tour.

See Washington, D.C. illuminated at night on an optional tour of the capital’s sights. The evening light gives the city’s monumental architecture a different presence from a daytime visit.

Washington’s memorials and civic landmarks are especially atmospheric against the dark sky, offering another way to appreciate their scale and setting. This experience is at additional cost and bookable on tour.

Visit Madahòkì Farm near Ottawa to experience traditional powwow dance and learn about the diversity of Indigenous cultures across Canada. Hear how cultural knowledge and traditional arts are kept alive through connections with elders and artisans.

Dance is a living expression of community, not simply a performance from the past. This MAKE TRAVEL MATTER® experience supports greater recognition of Indigenous cultures and the people working to sustain their traditions.