Planning Summer 2018: Why we're not going to Niagara Falls

In the past, we've only blogged trips on Little Rabbit's Planning. After a couple of days of migraine-inducing marathon planning for Summer 2018, I set myself a limit of 1 hour/day and decided to blog the process.

While I was sorting out my photos I dug up this old picture of Niagara Falls in the kind of weather you get in real life.

The only reason we're not going to Niagara Falls is simple: we've already been. Mike went decades ago, when he was still a US resident. I went in August 2015, by myself. It was sort of a mistake actually. I'd booked a flight from Iceland to Toronto, thinking I would have lots of time in Canada. I thought I might see Montreal and Quebec, then take a train to Vancouver, then somehow get from Vancouver to Idaho, where I had stuff to do. It turned out that the 'stuff' took over and the only thing I did in Canada is rent a car at Toronto airport and drive down to Niagara Falls for the day. Not really worth the hassle of dealing with two lots of North American immigration in the space of three days. 

Don't get me wrong though. I liked Niagara a lot. Not so much for the Falls themselves. They're nice enough, even on a grey, wet day, but I've seen a lot of waterfalls. Maybe I'd rate these ones a 7/10. No, what's really neat about Niagara is its status as a vintage tourist site. Its something it shares with places like the Statue of Liberty in New York and the Eiffel Tower in Paris. Their status as century+-old tourist sites gives them a quality and a history all their own. I had a lot of fun walking up and down the banks around the Falls, watching the watchers, the boats, the paths, the souvenir shops, the dubious food 'offerings' and 'exciting adventures' someone thinks the punters might buy to make their Niagara Falls Experience a little more special.