10 Best Things to Do in Ottawa

The Rideau Canal was inscribed by UNESCO in 2007 under criteria one and four: 202 km from Ottawa to Kingston, completed in 1832 for military reasons after the War of 1812, and the best-preserved slackwater canal in North America. It is the only canal from the great North American canal-building era still operating on its original line with most of its original structures. The flight of eight locks between Parliament Hill and the Chateau Laurier is the showpiece, and walking it and the towpath costs nothing.

The navigation season runs 15 May to 12 October 2026, with lockstation hours from 09:00 or 10:00 to between 16:00 and 19:00 depending on the month and day. Boat lockage fees apply, though they are free from 19 June to 7 September 2026 under the Canada Strong Pass. Lockstation access is prohibited between 22:00 and 06:00.

In winter the canal becomes the Rideau Canal Skateway, free and open around the clock when conditions allow, and this is where honesty matters. The 2025 to 2026 season opened on 31 December 2025 at just 3.4 km of the full 7.8 km and closed on 5 March 2026 after 56 days, drawing over a million visits. It managed 52 days in 2025 and did not open at all in 2023. The National Capital Commission is explicit that the season is weather-dependent and typically runs January to early March. Treat skating as a bonus rather than a plan.

Pro Tip: Walk down the lock flight from Parliament Hill to the river and look back up: eight chambers rising in a staircase with the Chateau Laurier above is the best free photograph in Ottawa. If you are here between 8 and 18 May 2026, add Commissioners Park at Dow's Lake for the Canadian Tulip Festival, also free.

Moshe Safdie's glass-and-granite building above the Ottawa River holds the national collection, and its Canadian and Indigenous galleries are the reason to come rather than the European rooms. Louise Bourgeois's giant bronze spider Maman stands outside, free to photograph. Hours to 13 September 2026 are daily 09:30 to 17:00 with Thursdays to 20:00; from 14 September it closes on Mondays, and it shuts entirely on 25 December and for annual maintenance from 18 to 22 January 2027.

Admission is 22 dollars for adults, about 13.65 EUR, 20 for over-65s, 15 for ages 18 to 30, 12 for ages 12 to 17 and free for children 11 and under, with 3 dollars off when you buy online. Indigenous Peoples enter free year round. The move worth planning around is free admission every Thursday from 17:00 to 20:00, which also comes with free tours and art activities. Special exhibitions can carry a surcharge, and parking is paid and underground.

Pro Tip: Build one Thursday evening around the free window and you can walk from here to the Museum of Nature or across the Alexandra Bridge to the Museum of History, all free after 17:00 on the same night. Three hours, four galleries, nothing spent.

Douglas Cardinal's curving limestone building across the river holds the Canadian History Hall, which covers 15,000 years in one continuous gallery and is the single best exhibition in the capital region. The Grand Hall's West Coast totem poles and the Canadian Children's Museum are permanent. Hours to 7 September 2026 are 09:00 to 18:00 with Thursdays to 19:00, then 09:00 to 17:00 from 8 September, open daily.

Admission is 25 dollars for adults, about 15.55 EUR, 23 for over-65s, 12.50 for ages 18 to 24 and free for children 3 to 17, with 10 percent off online and free entry for Indigenous Peoples. It is also free every Thursday from 17:00 to 19:00. Timed tickets are required, so reserve. Napoleon: The Immersive Saga runs to 10 January 2027 as a separate add-on ticket, and Spotlight on Soccer runs to 3 January 2027.

Two honest notes. It is in Quebec, which means a separate transit system, separate provincial holidays and a walk across an exposed bridge that is genuinely unpleasant in a January wind. And the Napoleon show costs extra on top of a 25 dollar ticket, so read the small print before you assume it is included. Parking is 2 dollars per half hour to a daily maximum of 18, with a 1.93 m height limit.

Pro Tip: Walk over the Alexandra Bridge rather than taking a bus, and do it northbound in the afternoon. The view back at Parliament Hill from the middle of the bridge is the shot the tourist board uses, and the bridge is safe for pedestrians through 2026 since its replacement does not begin until 2028.

Raymond Moriyama's deliberately austere concrete building tells Canada's military history across four Canadian Experience galleries, with the LeBreton Gallery of tanks and heavy vehicles as the crowd-pleaser. Memorial Hall is the emotional centre: it is aligned so that a shaft of light falls on the headstone of the Unknown Soldier at 11:00 on 11 November and on no other day of the year. Hours are 09:00 to 17:00 daily with Thursdays to 19:00.

Admission is 23 dollars for adults, about 14.30 EUR, 21 for over-65s, 11.50 for ages 18 to 24 and free for children 3 to 17, with 10 percent off online. Free always for members, Indigenous Peoples, and Canadian military personnel plus up to two guests. Free on Canada Day, the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation and Remembrance Day, and free every Thursday 17:00 to 19:00. Timed tickets are required for all visitors. Canada at War Against Japan runs to 31 December 2026 and Close to Conflict, on Canada and the American Civil War, to 28 February 2027.

Say the obvious thing plainly: this is emotionally heavy and it is not a light family outing despite children being free. The architecture is intentionally bleak and some visitors find it oppressive. There is no O-Train station at the door, and parking is 2 dollars per half hour to an 18 dollar maximum with a 1.98 m height limit.

Pro Tip: Go to Memorial Hall first, before the galleries, and read the room before you know the history. Then walk the four galleries in order. If you are in Ottawa on 11 November, be in that hall at 11:00 and nowhere else in the city.

Founded in 1826 by Lieutenant-Colonel John By while he was building the Rideau Canal, ByWard Market is one of Canada's oldest continuously operating public markets and the district around it holds more than 600 businesses. Entry costs nothing. The indoor Heritage Hall runs seven days a week, 363 days a year, and the outdoor farmers' and vendor market runs daily from May to October, roughly 09:00 to 17:00 and weather-dependent. Restaurants and bars run far later.

Two caveats that matter. The outdoor market, which is the actual reason to come, is seasonal: arrive in February and you get an indoor hall and a restaurant district rather than a market. And Ottawa City Council approved a ByWard Market redevelopment plan in March 2026, so expect construction and public-realm disruption over the next few years, with the exact 2026 hoardings unclear. The bar strip also has a well-documented evening rowdiness problem, and the BeaverTails queue is long enough to reconsider your life choices.

Pro Tip: Come for breakfast rather than dinner. The market is at its working best between 08:00 and 10:00, the produce stalls are fully set up, the restaurants are calm, and Notre-Dame Cathedral Basilica is five minutes away. Note that the cathedral's Sussex Drive front entrances have been closed for renovation since 30 April 2026, so use the side doors on St Patrick Street.

The Victoria Memorial Museum Building is a 1912 Tudor-Gothic pile that housed Parliament itself after the 1916 Centre Block fire, and it now holds the national natural history collection: a full Fossil Gallery, a blue whale skeleton, and a glass lantern tower added in the 2010 restoration. Hours from 15 May to 7 September 2026 are 09:30 to 17:00 with Thursdays to 20:00. From 8 September it closes on Tuesdays and shuts at 16:00, which catches out a lot of winter visitors.

From 9 September 2026 admission is 26 dollars for adults, about 16.15 EUR, and 19 dollars for over-65s, students and also 19 dollars for children aged 3 to 12, which is the least family-friendly pricing in Ottawa given that the four national museums nearby admit under-17s free. Between 19 June and 7 September 2026 the Canada Strong Pass makes all ages 0 to 17 free and halves the 18 to 24 rate. Nature after 5 gives free admission every Thursday 17:00 to 20:00, and an Ottawa Public Library Nature Card admits up to five people free.

Pro Tip: If you are travelling with children outside the summer pass window, come on a Thursday after 17:00 and pay nothing rather than 26 plus 19 plus 19 at the door. Book online for 10 percent off if you cannot make a Thursday, and check the day of the week twice, because Tuesday closures run for eight months of the year.

The official residence of the Governor General of Canada sits in 79 acres of grounds that are open daily year round, free, from 08:00 to an hour before sunset, with public art, a skating rink in winter and the ceremonial gates. The 45-minute guided tour of the residence itself covers the State rooms, the Canadian art and furniture collection and the honours exhibition, and it is also free.

Booking depends on the season and it is worth getting right. From 5 January to 3 May 2026 tours run daily 10:00 to 15:00 by reservation only. From 4 May to 30 June and again from 2 September to 30 October it is reservation only on weekdays and first come, first served at weekends. Between 1 July and 1 September 2026 no reservation is needed at all, daily 10:00 to 16:00. Requests need at least 72 hours notice outside that window. Expect metal-detector screening, and note that backpacks and video devices are not allowed inside.

The honest limitations: this is a working residence, so hours change and tours cancel for official business at short notice, and you see State rooms rather than the private apartments. There is no on-site parking at all, only free three-hour street parking in the surrounding neighbourhood. The 3.5 km walk down Sussex Drive is genuinely pleasant in September and grim in February.

Pro Tip: Come between 1 July and 1 September and skip the reservation entirely. Walk out along Sussex Drive past the National Gallery, the Prime Minister's official residence at 24 Sussex and the diplomatic quarter, which turns the journey into half the attraction rather than a commute.

One very large hangar at a working airfield, holding more than 130 aircraft from a Silver Dart replica to a Lancaster bomber and the surviving nose section of the cancelled Avro Arrow, which is as close as Canada gets to a national what-if. Hours are simple and reliable: daily 09:00 to 17:00, open on statutory holidays except 25 December.

Admission is 17.25 dollars for adults, about 10.70 EUR, 15 for over-60s and students 25 and over, 12 for youth 3 to 17, free under 2, and 43.25 for a family of up to six with a maximum of two adults. Active military, veterans and Indigenous Peoples enter free, as does everyone on 1 July and 30 September. The detail that makes this entry worth its slot is that admission is free every single day from 16:00 to 17:00. Under the Canada Strong Pass, 19 June to 7 September, youth are free and 18 to 24 pay half.

The downsides are location and comfort: it is a bus or car trip rather than a walk, parking is 4 dollars an hour to a 9.50 daily maximum, and the hangar is cold in winter and hot in summer. Flight simulators and the virtual reality experiences cost extra. For children under eight the Canada Science and Technology Museum is the better of the two Ingenium sites.

Pro Tip: Arrive at 15:45, pay nothing from 16:00, and spend the free hour on the Second World War hall and the Avro Arrow nose. One hour is genuinely enough unless you are an enthusiast, and it turns a 17.25 dollar museum into a free one.

Gatineau Park runs 361 square kilometres north-west from the edge of the capital, with the Champlain Lookout over the Ottawa Valley, Pink Lake's meromictic green water and 165 km of trails. Inside it sits the Mackenzie King Estate, the summer property of Canada's longest-serving prime minister, complete with the collection of artificial ruins he assembled from demolished buildings including fragments of the British House of Commons. The park, the estate, the ruins, the gardens and the guided tours are all free.

The Visitor Centre opens daily 09:00 to 17:00 from 1 May to 31 October, then weekdays 09:00 to 16:00 and weekends to 17:00. The estate cottages open 18 May to 2 September 2026 daily except Wednesdays, 10:00 to 17:00, then weekends only from 7 September to 27 October. Guided tours run 22 June to 2 September, Thursday to Sunday, in English and French. Parking is where the cost lands: fees apply at estate and trailhead lots from mid-June to October, though Visitor Centre parking is free.

Be realistic about the logistics. Outside the shuttle season you need a car, and the shuttle does not run on Wednesdays. The cottages close on Wednesdays in summer and shut entirely from late October to mid-May, so a winter visitor gets grounds and trails only. Popular lots at Pink Lake and Champlain Lookout fill by mid-morning on summer weekends and are then closed. The estate tea room is not operating, with no concession operator in place. Autumn colour here peaks in early to mid October and the roads gridlock accordingly.

Pro Tip: Use the free shuttle on a weekday in late September, get off at the Mackenzie King Estate, and walk the ruins before the foliage crowds arrive. Bring your own lunch, because the tea room is shut and there is nothing else out there but picnic tables and a day shelter.