Day trips
Day trips, as this guide organises them
Saugeen Shores sits mid-shore on Highway 21, which makes its day-trip fan run in three directions: down the Huron shore, up the Bruce Peninsula, and inland to the county towns. This page is the organiser: which direction for which day, and where the full fan is printed.
The fan out of town, and back
A town seated where Saugeen Shores sits -- on the lakeshore highway, with the Bruce Peninsula above it and the Saugeen River country behind it -- generates day trips the way a shore generates roads. South is the Huron shore: Kincardine's lighthouse town, then Goderich. North is the peninsula: Wiarton, Sauble Beach, and Tobermory at the tip for the full day. East and inland are the working county towns: Owen Sound's small city, Walkerton on the river, Paisley the village.
Every destination in that fan is another municipality's town, and this guide prints them that way everywhere -- as trips out of Saugeen Shores, in their own names, with their own operators. The full fan, with every distance computed from The Plex and the return discipline printed beside it, lives on this guide's day-trips-from page; this page is the short version that helps you choose a direction.
The fan, in three directions
South, down the shore
The lighthouse-and-harbour town, then the big lake port with the courthouse square: the shore day, each town in its own municipality, printed as a trip.
North, up the peninsula
The gateway town, the famous beach (South Bruce Peninsula's, never this town's), and the tip -- ferries, glass-bottom boats and Flowerpot Island -- as the long day, in Northern Bruce Peninsula's name.
Inland, the river country
The county town on the Saugeen River, the heritage village, and the region's small city for services and the falls walk: the grey-day fan.
Choosing the day
Match the direction to the day you have: boats and beaches north, shore towns south, services and river towns inland. Weather picks too -- Tobermory wants the clear, booked-ahead day; Owen Sound and the county towns carry the grey one. Whatever the direction, the return discipline on the day-trips-from page applies: last sailings and park closings read before departure, and the Highway 21 night drive -- deer country, squall country in winter -- planned, not improvised.
What stays home
A day-trip fan is only honest if the home town keeps its own list: Saugeen Shores' two beaches, its island boat, its park, its museum and its markets are its own, printed on this guide's own pages -- and nothing in the fan is needed to fill a Saugeen Shores day. The trips out are additions, not substitutes, and the guide keeps the two lists separate on purpose.
Common questions
Where is the full day-trip list?
On this guide's day-trips-from page: every direction carded with distances computed from The Plex at 600 Tomlinson Drive (straight-line by haversine, road at 1.35 times straight-line, time at 62 km/h), plus the return discipline.
What is the single best day trip from Saugeen Shores?
Kincardine for most visitors -- the closest shore town and a complete harbour day. Peninsula travellers will argue for Tobermory, and the guide prints both cases with their true lengths: Tobermory is the long day, planned as one.
Are day-trip destinations part of Saugeen Shores?
No. Kincardine, Goderich, Wiarton, Sauble Beach, Tobermory, Walkerton, Paisley and Owen Sound are their own municipalities. They appear in this guide only as destinations out of Saugeen Shores, never as Saugeen Shores attractions.
More to explore in Saugeen Shores
The header images on this page are illustrations drawn for Dayfari, not photographs. No verified photograph of the Saugeen Shores places named here (licence and subject checked) could be attested for this version, so those places are illustrated or described in text only, rather than borrowed from another town.
If you book through these links, Dayfari may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.