Canada's Endlessly Charming 'City By The Sea' Is An Island Haven With Fresh Seafood And Shorefront Stays

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Prince Edward Island (PEI), just off the east coast of the Canadian mainland, near Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, is known for its scenic coastline and handsome portside towns. One town that epitomizes this is Summerside. With a boardwalk, a harborfront theater, lots of holiday accommodation rentals, and colorful wooden buildings that wouldn't look out of place on the set of a children's TV show, it has the trappings of a quintessential summer retreat. This has earned it an appropriate epithet: the City by the Sea.

Summerside is PEI's second largest city and is located on the Island Walk, a 435-mile trail network that circumnavigates the island, with some detours inland. Admiring the coastline, wandering along the boardwalk, and taking to the water on a boat or kayak are all fun outdoor activities in Summerside. Unsurprisingly, given the town's geography, it's also a good place to try fresh Atlantic seafood, which is a mainstay in the food-lover's guide to Prince Edward Island.

You'll find standard business hotels, motels, and inns in Summerside, but to make the most of your trip here, consider loosening the purse strings and booking a private shorefront holiday rental. Some of these are genuinely stunning, built in secluded locations, with sleek interiors, balcony views, broad lawns, and access to the beach. Others are closer to the town center (which is practically on the shore), meaning you're just a short walk or drive from the boardwalk and theater.

Finding fresh seafood in Summerside should pose no difficulty — even pizzerias, like Dino's Pizza on Water Street, have their own seafood dish menus. Popular, ad hoc fish restaurants in town include Jolly Roger's Seafood, serving fish burgers, deep-fried clams, and frutti di mare pastas in a rustic setting (the dining room looks like the mess hall of an old wooden galleon), and the Deckhouse, where you can eat mussels, calamari, clam chowder, lobster, or haddock tacos on a deck overlooking the shore. These two restaurants have solid scores of 4.6 and 4.4, respectively, on Google reviews.

Still Smokin' on Heather Moyse Drive should whet your appetite, too. It celebrates local ingredients, like PEI potatoes, used in its salad and poutine dishes, as well as Atlantic catches including halibut, mussels, clams, lobster, and oysters. The restaurant also has themed days like Wine Wednesdays, when ordering two glasses of wine slashes 50% off the cost of an appetizer, or Taco Tuesdays, when fish tacos go for $5 a pop. This place has the relaxed look and atmosphere of a beach house; dine on the deck so you can enjoy the views. 

Beer drinkers should make a point of swinging by Evermore Brewing Co., a microbrewery located near the coast. Sample its in-house selection of ales, lagers, porters, and sours and pair it with seafood appetizers like fried clams, butter and garlic mussels, and salt cod fritters. The taproom also hosts live music on Tuesday nights and a Celtic jam session on Saturdays, a nod to the history of Irish immigration to Prince Edward Island.

Finding high-quality accommodation will help complete your Summerside journey. Some of the town's holiday rental properties are listed on the Prince Edward Island tourism website. One of these, called Tanner's Beach, is a wooden beach house, painted a nice shade of duck-egg blue, and equipped to sleep six guests. It's great for summer stays, with large, airy common areas, a pair of balconies, beach access, and a lawn surrounded by conifers. As there's a fireplace, heated floors, and a jet tub, it can also accommodate winter travelers. Another nice, if less extravagant, property on Granville Street puts you right in the heart of town, only a 15-minute walk from the boardwalk and shops and restaurants.

Rental sites like Airbnb and Vrbo also have nice accommodations available in Summerside, whether you're looking for somewhere simple to lay your head for the evening or a large property capable of hosting an entire family and appointed with balconies offering pretty coastal views. Additionally, as the Island Walk swings through Summerside, all properties in town are within a short stroll or drive of the PEI-spanning trail. You can walk this safe in the knowledge that Prince Edward Island is the only Canadian province without any bears.

Despite being on an island, Summerside is quite accessible. The Confederation Bridge connects PEI with New Brunswick — the drive from Halifax, Nova Scotia, takes about three hours. You can also get a Northumberland Ferry across the strait. It travels between Caribou on the mainland and Wood Islands, after which you'll have to drive 1 hour, 40 minutes west to get to Summerside. You should also consider traveling elsewhere on the island while you're here, like Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island's charming, storybook capital, which is only an hour away from Summerside by car.