What should I avoid in Toronto?

Most first-day mistakes in Toronto happen at Pearson. Men in the arrivals halls sometimes offer a ride downtown, but they are unlicensed, and the airport directs travellers to the marked taxi and limo stand at the curb. Even a legal cab costs roughly $60 to $70 CAD at the flat downtown rate, and Highway 401 at 5pm can turn that into an hour of red brake lights. The UP Express leaves Terminal 1 every 15 minutes and reaches Union Station in 25 minutes for about $12 if you tap a credit card or PRESTO card, with Terminal 3 passengers riding the free Terminal Link train over to it first. Union then trips people up a second time: the PATH, a 30 km underground network of shops and food courts, starts beneath the station, and on a jet-lagged afternoon you can lose 20 minutes in its fried-food air looking for daylight. Climb the stairs to Front Street and walk at street level.

The CN Tower, open since 1976, charges around $45 CAD for the main observation level, and on a grey morning that buys you nothing but wet cotton. Look up from Front Street before you commit: if the top has vanished into cloud, take the ferry from the Jack Layton Ferry Terminal at the foot of Bay Street to Ward's Island instead, where the return fare is under $10, the wooden boardwalk creaks underfoot, and the skyline looks better from there because the tower is in the frame. Skip Sankofa Square, the former Yonge-Dundas Square, unless you want ten-storey screens and the smell of street-cart hot dogs. Canada's Walk of Fame, started in 1998, is a row of plaques on the King Street West sidewalk that most pedestrians step on without noticing. The Toronto Zoo dates from 1974 and sits in far-east Scarborough, roughly 90 minutes each way on transit, which costs too much of a three-day first visit.

Queens Quay is lined with chain patios that charge around $28 for a burger because Lake Ontario sits behind the railing. Walk 15 minutes north-east to St. Lawrence Market instead, where Carousel Bakery sells the peameal bacon sandwich, salty, hot and crunchy with its cornmeal crust, for about $10. The South Market is usually closed Sundays and Mondays, so plan it for Tuesday to Saturday. Wherever you eat, the menu price is not the bill: Ontario adds 13% HST at the till and servers expect 15 to 20% on top, so a $30 main lands near $40. At this week's rate of 1 USD to 1.4262 CAD, that $40 is about US$28.

Lake Ontario wind is the hazard nobody packs for. At 7am today Toronto read 7.5°C under a clear sky but felt like 4.8°C, and that sting on your ears along the waterfront gets sharper from November, when wind chill can push mornings below minus 20. In July and August the humidex often passes 35, and the platforms at Bloor-Yonge feel like a steam room. Don't drive into downtown Toronto: evening parking near King and John streets often runs $25 or more, and the 504 King streetcar, with right-of-way between Bathurst and Jarvis, is faster. After 11pm, the blocks around Dundas and Sherbourne and Moss Park have open drug use, and a ride-hail is the better choice there than walking. Toronto rates 7.8/10 for solo-traveler safety (see the TTDI Solo-Safety Index).