WE ARE AT CAPACITY, PLEASE CHECK WITH GREG BEFORE BOOKING ANYTHING
March 2025 NYC ↔ Montreal Maple Sugar Shack Group Tour!!
What?
A semi-organized group tour of Montreal and a delicious and authentic meal at a Quebec Sugar Shack (“cabane à sucre”)!
(What’s a Sugar Shack? Here are a few articles: this, this, this, and this)
When?
Friday March 21st to Monday March 24th inclusive, in the year of 2025!
How much?
WE ARE AT CAPACITY, PLEASE CHECK WITH GREG BEFORE BOOKING ANYTHING
- train tickets are
$150$164 (it’s going up!) round trip right now NYC ↔ Montreal!! DON’T WAIT, BUY THEM EARLY!! (see below) - the sugar shack meal is very roughly about $50 USD, if that
- transportation to and from the sugar shack will cost about $40 USD per person (this will be confirmed)
- you’d be spending 3 nights in Montreal - I’ll try to provide some good hotel/hostel options
- total: train + sugar shack + transport + hotel = 400-500 USD, very approximately.
Itinerary from New York City
- Fri 3/21: New York → Montreal by train
- Sat 3/22: Sugar shack day!
- Sun 3/23: Montreal activities (art, food, shopping, leisure)
- Mon 3/24: Montreal → New York by train
I want this! aka How To Book
WE ARE AT CAPACITY, PLEASE CHECK WITH GREG BEFORE BOOKING ANYTHING
This is a “semi-“organized tour, meaning that:
- YOU need to book the roundtrip NYC ↔ Montreal Amtrak tickets yourself (you can do it! DO IT AS SOON AS POSSIBLE THOUGH)
- I recommend getting the “Flex” ticket option which is fully refundable
- YOU need to book your hotel/hostel for the 3 nights (same, do it soon!)
- some people are staying at Auberge du Plateau
- airbnb is an option, obviously
- another option is this nice hotel (that’s connected to the train station in the underground city) with a heated outdoor pool
- you can also find a hostel: you usually have a range of options from a room with shared bunk beds (“dortoir”) to private rooms (“chambre privée”) for 2 or 5 people. one good place is Auberge Chez Jean.
- PLEASE JOIN the WhatsApp group so that Greg can keep a tally of who’s coming.
- The idea is that you can mostly be on your own if you want to: you can fly to Montreal instead of taking the train, you can join other people on Sunday for leisurely Montreal activities or not, it’s all good. But if you want to join everyone else, we’ll try to do things as a group as well!
FAQ
- which sugar shack will it be?
- will there be a vegetarian option?
- yes, there will be a vegetarian option!
- wasn’t there a super cool NYC-Montreal train demoparty a few years ago?
- yeah no totally - Synchrony!! it’s extremely cool but I don’t know if I can manage to do something as cool. but it’s very cool/tempting. like on one hand should we bring our laptops (it is a ~10 hour ride both ways)? on the other hand, what if we didn’t bring our laptops? would it be more relaxing? or would it be more relaxing to write code for 10 hours (I don’t know)? but it might also be fun, since we’re all going as a group…… I don’t know! let’s think about it.
- hey greg, it’s your faq, do whatever you want - do you want to share some Quebec music?
- heck yeah! this album from Jean-Paul Guimond is full of extremely beautiful traditional Quebec singing. this is a super duper well known traditional song (it’s so good). finally, my friends recorded an album ~16 years ago and it’s still so great. give it a listen. ok ok one last thing… this is one of my favorite punkish-hard-rock songs. that’s it!
- but I don’t speak French!
- you’ll be fine! just remember “bonjour” means hi, and you can even say it as goodbye, and “merci” means thanks. also “oui” (yes) and “non” (no) and you should be good! oh also “s’il vous plaît” (please). you’re good!
- want/need more info? reach out to greg!
- more Q/A’s soon as they trickle in