Road trip Ontario: Provincial parks that offer solitude to visitors

The end of summer will arrive sooner than you hope but there is still time for one last, quiet getaway.

While it is impossible to find complete solitude in most places, HomeToGo has pored through the data and comprised a list of the top parks across Ontario to avoid the crowds.

The site, which is a search engine for vacation rentals, graded the provincial parks in five categories, including solitude score, which looked at the lowest number of visitors per hectare at each venue.

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The other categories that came under consideration included wildlife, facilities, activities and accommodations. The accommodations scores came from HometoGo’s own metadata.

According to HometoGo, the top provincial park across Ontario to escape the crowds is Arrowhead Park.

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The park, which is located just north of Huntsville, scored a perfect 10 for its accommodations as well as a 9.53 solitude score, which was 10^th overall of the 19 provincial parks that made the cut.

Killarney, which is located south of Sudbury, finished no. 2 on the list. It likely would have taken top spot if not for its low accommodation score (6.42).

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The park scored a near-perfect 9.99 solitude number and fared well in the Activities category as well.

Coming in at No. 3 was Rondeau Park, which is located on the shores of Lake Erie.

The park, which is less than an hour’s drive from Chatham, scored a perfect 10 wildlife score. It also had a great solitude number (9.86) although it was dinged for its accommodations (5.23) (or lack thereof.)

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In fourth place, Sleeping Giant Provincial Park on the northern end of Lake Superior near Thunder Bay scored a pair of perfect 10s for its activities and facilities but low scores for accommodations (5.08) and wildlife (7.07) prevented it from finishing higher on the list.

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Rounding out the top five is Awenda Provincial Park, which sits on the shores of Georgian Bay.

A great option for those in the GTA and Southwestern Ontario, especially for those seeking peace and quiet, as it recorded a solitude score of 9.84.

Lake Superior Provincial Park was one of two parks in the rankings which recorded a perfect 10 solitude score. It is one of the largest in the province and is located between Wawa and Sault Ste. Marie.

It was joined in the perfect 10 club by Quetico, which is a two-hour drive from Thunder Bay. (The distance from any major city would likely explain the score.)

The other three parks rounding out the top 10 were MacGregor Point (no. 6), which is not far down the shore on Lake Huron from Sauble Beach, Presqu’ile, which is on Lake Ontario near Brighton, and Grundy Lake, which is an hour’s drive south of Sudbury.