▶ Video · Best of Charlottetown

Video guide · 10:54

Birthplace of ConfederationIsland capitalOyster country

Top 10 Things To Do in Charlottetown

Country

Canada

Best months

Jun · Jul · Aug · Sep

Population

38,809

Language

English

Budget / day

C$140–260

Quick answer

Charlottetown is a capital of about 39,000 people, and everything a visitor comes for sits in six blocks of Confederation-era brick between Province House and the harbour. Give the first day to the walk: Great George Street down to Peake's Wharf, the Confederation Centre stage in the evening, oysters on Sydney Street after. Give the second to red sand and water, either the national park beaches 20 minutes north or Cavendish and Green Gables 40 minutes away.

Best of Charlottetown

▶ Video guide

This is the smallest of Canada's ten provincial capitals and it does not pretend otherwise. Nothing downtown is more than a fifteen-minute walk from anything else, the tallest thing on the skyline is a pair of church spires, and the one building the city is famous for has been behind scaffolding since 2015. What Charlottetown has instead is a summer that runs at full volume from late June to the end of September: a festival stage holding a Guinness record, a working wharf, sixty vendors at the Saturday market, and shellfish pulled from bays you can drive to in half an hour.

The 10 best things to do in Charlottetown

Confederation Centre of the Arts

Theatre· 145 Richmond St, Charlottetown, PE C1A 1J1

The national memorial to the Fathers of Confederation is not a monument, it is a working theatre, and it is the reason the city fills every summer. The Charlottetown Festival runs on the Sobey Family Theatre stage from late June into September: in 2026 that is Anne of Green Gables, The Musical from 25 June to 5 September and Come From Away from 2 July to 26 September. The Anne production has played every summer since 1965 and holds the Guinness World Record for the longest-running annual musical theatre production. The complex also holds the art gallery and, in the Upper Foyer, the Story of Confederation exhibit that stands in for Province House next door while that building is closed.

Time3 hrs

CostTicketed shows

Best atEvening

TipBook the Anne matinee rather than the evening show if you also want a wharf dinner

Official site Map

Great George Street

Historic street· Great George St, Charlottetown, PE

Six blocks running uphill from the water to Province House, and the route the delegates walked after landing at Peake's Quay on 1 September 1864. It was designated a national historic district in 1990 for that association and for the Confederation-era houses along it, which hold a consistent scale and setback the whole way up, so the street reads as one thing rather than a row of separate buildings. St. Dunstan's Basilica breaks the line halfway. Walk it from the bottom, in the direction the delegates did, and it ends at the building where the country was argued into existence.

Time45 min

CostFree

Best atMorning

TipStart at Peake's Wharf and climb

Parks Canada record Map

Peake's Wharf and Confederation Landing

Waterfront· 1 Great George St, Charlottetown, PE

The working end of the harbour, at the foot of Great George Street where the 1864 delegates came ashore. Today it is craft shops, ice cream, patios and the departure dock for Peake's Wharf Boat Tours, which run from June to September: 70-minute harbour and sunset sailings, and a two-and-a-half hour seal watch that hauls a lobster trap on the way. Confederation Landing Park spreads east from the wharf as lawn and boardwalk along the water. Cruise ships tie up here from early May to early November, and the town noticeably changes gear on the days two are in.

Time2 hrs

CostFree to walk, tours ticketed

Best atLate afternoon

TipCheck the cruise schedule before booking a boat tour

Port Charlottetown Map

Province House National Historic Site

Landmark· 165 Richmond St, Charlottetown, PE C1A 1J1

The sandstone building at the top of Great George Street is where the Charlottetown Conference sat from 1 to 9 September 1864, and it is still the seat of the provincial legislature. It is also closed. Parks Canada shut it to visitors in 2015 for a conservation project that has since cost close to $140 million, and the reopening is expected in the autumn of 2026. Until then the exterior is what you get, plus the Story of Confederation exhibit and the Province House film in the Confederation Centre next door. Check the Parks Canada page before you plan around it, because the date has moved before.

Time20 min outside

CostFree

Best atAny time

TipDo not build a day around the interior until Parks Canada says the doors are open

Parks Canada Map

Victoria Row

Pedestrian street· Richmond St, Charlottetown, PE

A block of Richmond Street beside the Confederation Centre that closes to cars for the summer and turns into the city's outdoor room: cobbles, patios down both sides, and live music most evenings. Charlottetown council made the late patio hours permanent for the summer season, so this is where the evening lasts longest. The row was fenced off through the Confederation Centre construction that began in late 2024 and is now open across its full width again. It is a short block, and it is the fastest way to understand how the town spends a July night.

Time1 hr

CostFree

Best atEvening

TipBuskers work the row between sets on the patios

Downtown Charlottetown Map

St. Dunstan's Basilica

Church· 45 Great George St, Charlottetown, PE

The mother church of the Roman Catholic diocese of Prince Edward Island, and the tallest thing on a low skyline: the twin spires are visible from the harbour, from Victoria Park and from most of the streets in between. The present building went up in the early twentieth century in a High Victorian Gothic idiom, and its interior is the one genuinely soaring room in the city. It sits halfway up Great George Street, so it lands naturally in the middle of that walk. The public may go in whenever a service is not under way.

Time30 min

CostFree

Best atMidday

TipCheck the parish site for the Mass schedule first

Parish site Map

Victoria Park and the boardwalk

Park· Victoria Park, Charlottetown, PE

The city's green edge, on the point where the harbour meets the strait. The land was set aside by Lieutenant Governor Edmund Fanning in 1789; 40 acres of the Government House farm passed to the city in 1873 and another 16, including the Prince Edward Battery, in 1905. The 1.2 kilometre boardwalk, built in 1994, runs the shoreline from Brighton Road round to West Street past Battery Point and Duchess Point, which is about twenty minutes at a walking pace. Behind it are ball fields, tennis courts, a pool and a playground, and above it the white bulk of Government House.

Time1 hr

CostFree

Best atSunset

TipStart at Beaconsfield Historic House on Kent Street

City of Charlottetown Map

Beaconsfield Historic House

Historic house· 2 Kent St, Charlottetown, PE C1A 1M6

Built in 1877 for the shipbuilder James Peake to a design by William Critchlow Harris, the architect whose work turns up all over the Island, and kept close to its original state by the PEI Museum and Heritage Foundation. It is the best surviving picture of what shipping money bought in a colonial capital, and the guides tell the rest of the Peake story, which ends in bankruptcy within a few years of the house being finished. Hours run daily 10am to 4pm in July and August, weekdays 10am to 4pm in June, September and October, and weekdays noon to 4pm from November to April. Summer admission is $12 plus HST for adults.

Time1 hr

Cost$12 + HST

Best atMorning

TipThe Carriage House behind the main building runs lectures and concerts through the season

Museum site Map

Founders' Food Hall & Market

Food hall· 6 Prince St, Charlottetown, PE

The old Founders' Hall building on the waterfront, reopened as an indoor market: Island kitchens and globally minded ones side by side, a cafe, a full bar, and stalls selling soap, jewellery, hot sauce and the rest of the souvenir economy. The mezzanine and the outdoor patio both look over the harbour. It opens Monday to Saturday 10am to 7pm and Sunday noon to 5pm, with the food vendors starting at 11am, which makes it the reliable answer on a wet afternoon or a day when the Saturday market is closed.

Time1 hr

CostFree entry

Best atLunch

TipIt is a two-minute walk from Peake's Wharf

Official site Map

COWS Creamery

Factory tour· 397 Capital Dr, Charlottetown, PE

The Island ice cream brand makes everything at one plant ten minutes from downtown, and the self-guided factory tour is free: a walkway over the production floor, a cheese cave, a taste of the Avonlea Clothbound Cheddar and the t-shirt printing that funds half the joke. Tours run daily every half hour from 10am, June through September. It is an unashamedly commercial stop and it is also the clearest single explanation of how a province of 175,000 people exports a dairy brand, which is a more interesting hour than the ice cream alone would suggest.

Time1 hr

CostFree

Best atAfternoon

TipGo for the cheddar rather than the cone

Official site Map

8 of the 10, mapped

Charlottetown · 8 spots

AllLandmarksMuseumsFoodFree

Charlottetown travel FAQ

How many days do you need in Charlottetown?+

Two full days. One covers the downtown on foot, Great George Street to the wharf with a show in the evening, and the second buys the north shore: a national park beach in the morning and Green Gables or Cavendish in the afternoon. A third day gets you Greenwich or the Points East drive to Basin Head.

Can you go inside Province House?+

Not yet. Parks Canada closed it to visitors in 2015 for a conservation project and expects to reopen it in the autumn of 2026, so check the Parks Canada page before you plan around it. In the meantime the Story of Confederation exhibit and the Province House film sit in the Confederation Centre's Upper Foyer, next door.

When is the best time to visit Charlottetown?+

Late June to late September. The Charlottetown Festival runs from the end of June, surfguards are on the national park beaches from 27 June to 1 September in 2026, and August is the warmest month with an average high near 22C. September brings the Shellfish Festival and the harvest events, and thinner crowds with them.

Do you need a car in Charlottetown?+

Not for the city, which is walkable end to end in twenty minutes. You need one for everything else: the closest national park beach is 21 kilometres out, Cavendish is 38, and Basin Head is 80. T3 Transit covers the city and the airport, but not the shore.

How do you get to Prince Edward Island?+

Three ways. Fly into Charlottetown Airport, 8 kilometres from downtown. Drive the Confederation Bridge from New Brunswick, free coming on and $20 for a car leaving. Or take the Northumberland Ferries crossing from Caribou, Nova Scotia to Wood Islands, 75 minutes, seasonal from spring into December.

Beyond the top 10

Best historic sites in Charlottetown

Five more buildings and grounds that carry the Confederation story past Province House.

All 5 historic sites →

Rochford Square

All Souls' Chapel at St. Peter's Cathedral

National Historic Site

Built in 1888 in Island sandstone to a William Critchlow Harris design, as a memorial to the cathedral's first priest-incumbent, and designated a national historic site in 1990. High Victorian Gothic on a small scale, overlooking Rochford Square.

Cathedral site Map

Victoria Park

Government House (Fanningbank)

Tours in Jul and Aug

The Lieutenant Governor's official residence, finished in 1834 on land Edmund Fanning set aside in 1789. Guided tours run in July and August, Monday to Friday from 10am to 3pm; the grounds and gardens are open daily from dawn until dusk.

Map

Palmers Lane

Ardgowan National Historic Site

Grounds only

The cottage William Henry Pope lived in from 1854 to 1873, while he edited a newspaper, argued for Confederation and attended the conference as a Father of it. The house is not open, but the period gardens and grounds are yours to walk.

Parks Canada record Map

Queen at Kent

Charlottetown City Hall

Exterior, 1888

The oldest municipal hall on the Island, built in 1888 by Phillips and Chappell in the Romanesque Revival the century liked for civic work. The ground floor once held the police station and a firehall with its stable; the council chamber and court room were upstairs.

Map

Prince Street

St. Paul's Anglican Church

Island sandstone

A large Gothic Revival church in Island sandstone on a treed lot a block off Grafton Street. The entrance faces Church Street while the tower and spire turn toward Prince and Grafton, which is why it reads differently from every approach.

Map

Where to eat

Best restaurants in Charlottetown

Six kitchens for oysters, lobster and the Island beef in between.

All 6 restaurants →

Sydney Street

Claddagh Oyster House

Seafood

The Sydney Street room that made this a restaurant street, open more than 35 years, and the standing answer for oysters shucked to order alongside seafood and steak. The Olde Dublin Pub upstairs takes the overflow.

Official site Map

Water Street

Water Prince Corner Shop

Lobster pound

A blue clapboard corner shop and lobster pound two streets from the wharf, family run, with a full seafood menu and the lobster roll most Islanders will name first. Queues out the door in August are the normal state.

Map

Queen Street

Sims Corner Steakhouse & Oyster Bar

Steak and oysters

Aged and cut in house, with an oyster bar and a long wine list, on the Queen Street corner. The one downtown table that is about beef rather than shellfish, which after three days of chowder is worth knowing.

Official site Map

Grafton Street

The Pilot House

Pub kitchen

Straightforward pub cooking a block from the Confederation Centre, which makes it the sane option when a show lets out and Victoria Row is three deep. Grafton Street, in one of the heavy old commercial buildings.

Map

Fitzroy Street

Slaymaker & Nichols Gastro House

Gastro house

A gastro house and small inn on Fitzroy Street, a block up from the Queen Street crowds, cooking Island produce with more ambition than the room lets on.

Official site Map

Pownal Street

Salt & Sol

Waterfront dining

The restaurant and lounge at the Charlottetown Yacht Club on Pownal Street, which puts a seafood menu directly over the water. The best sightline in town from a dinner table.

Official site Map

After dark

Best bars and breweries in Charlottetown

Four places to drink Island beer, one of them upstairs from the oysters.

All 4 bars and breweries →

Sydney Street

Gahan House Pub & Brewery

Brewpub

The brewpub in the middle of the historic downtown, brewing on Sydney Street and pouring its own across a full pub menu. The default first pint, and the easiest to find.

Official site Map

Allen Street

Upstreet Craft Brewing

Taproom

A working brewery and taproom on Allen Street, north of the downtown grid and worth the fifteen-minute walk. The room fills with locals rather than cruise passengers.

Official site Map

Kensington Road

PEI Brewing Company

Brewery and venue

The largest of the city breweries, out on Kensington Road with a hall that doubles as a concert venue. Check what is booked before you go: the beer is the same either way, the evening is not.

Map

Sydney Street

Olde Dublin Pub

Irish pub

Upstairs from Claddagh at the same Sydney Street address, running since 1985, big and loud and the usual place to wait out a table downstairs. Live music through the summer.

Map

On stage

Best arts and theatre in Charlottetown

Four rooms for theatre, music and art, none more than five minutes apart.

All 4 arts and theatre →

Richmond Street

Confederation Centre Art Gallery

Gallery

The gallery wing of the Confederation Centre, showing Canadian art across changing exhibitions alongside the permanent collection. It is the serious visual art in town, and it is under the same roof as the Festival stage.

Official site Map

Queen Street

The Guild

140 seats

A 140-seat black box theatre and gallery on the Queen and Richmond corner, run as a not-for-profit and programmed with the local work the big stage does not carry. The best odds of seeing something made on the Island this year.

Official site Map

Great George Street

The Mack

Small theatre

The MacKenzie Theatre on Great George Street, small and close, used for concerts, plays and Festival productions that suit an intimate room better than a 1,100-seat house.

Map

Great George Street

Baba's Lounge

Live music

Upstairs from Cedar's Eatery on Great George Street, with live music most nights of the week. It has been the room where Island bands play for long enough that the city's music scene is largely a list of people who played here first.

Map

Red sand

Best beaches in Charlottetown

Four beaches within a 40-minute drive, three of them inside the national park.

All 4 beaches →

PEI National Park

Brackley Beach

21 km, supervised

Twenty-one kilometres north of downtown on Route 15, and the closest of the national park beaches: wide, dune-backed and the easiest to reach without planning a day around it. Surfguards are on duty 10am to 6pm daily from 27 June to 1 September 2026.

Parks Canada Map

PEI National Park

Stanhope Beach

21 km, supervised

Twenty-one kilometres northeast by Routes 2 and 25, quieter than Brackley on the same stretch of shore, with a boardwalk behind the dunes. Supervised 11am to 6pm daily through the same season.

Parks Canada Map

PEI National Park

Cavendish Beach

38 km, supervised

Thirty-eight kilometres northwest, under the red sandstone cliffs that put the Island on postcards, and the busiest sand on PEI in August. Supervised 10am to 6pm daily in season. Pair it with Green Gables, twenty minutes away.

Parks Canada Map

Stratford

Tea Hill Provincial Park

15 min drive

Fifteen minutes out through Stratford, on the harbour side rather than the north shore: a small provincial park with a beach, a playground and warm shallow water at high tide. The local answer when the park beaches are full.

Map

Take it home

Best shopping and markets in Charlottetown

Four places to spend, from sixty market stalls to a bookshop that has been there since 1972.

All 4 shopping and markets →

Belvedere Avenue

Charlottetown Farmers' Market

Sat 9am to 2pm

Sixty farm, craft and prepared-food vendors on Belvedere Avenue, Saturdays 9am to 2pm year-round, plus Wednesdays through the summer season. Produce, fish, meat, baking, preserves and roasted coffee, and the best single hour for understanding what the Island grows.

Official site Map

Richmond Street

Northern Watters Knitwear & Tartan Shop

Knitwear

Sweaters knitted in house from British wool, plus the work of more than 250 Canadian artisans, on Richmond Street. The one shop in town where the souvenir is likely to outlast the trip.

Official site Map

Queen Street

Bookmark

Independent bookshop

An independent bookshop on Queen Street trading since 1972, strong on Atlantic Canadian writing, with games, puzzles and stationery filling the rest of the room.

Map

Queen Street

The Anne of Green Gables Store

Gift shop

Queen Street, and exactly what it says: dolls, books, prints, straw hats with red braids attached. Either the reason you came to the Island or the thing you walk past twice a day, with no middle ground.

Map

Out of town

Best day trips in Charlottetown

Six drives from the capital, none of them over an hour and a quarter.

All 6 day trips →

Cavendish

Green Gables Heritage Place, Cavendish

40 min drive

The farmhouse that gave Lucy Maud Montgomery her setting, 40 kilometres and about 40 minutes north, run by Parks Canada. Open daily 9am to 5pm from 1 May to 31 October, with the Haunted Wood and Balsam Hollow trails behind it.

Parks Canada Map

Greenwich

Greenwich, Prince Edward Island National Park

50 min drive

Fifty minutes east on Route 2 for the largest dunes on the Island, including a rare horseshoe-shaped parabolic system, reached by a floating boardwalk across a pond. The best walk in the park and nothing like the beaches nearer town.

Tourism PEI Map

South shore

Victoria-by-the-Sea

30 min drive

A grid of nine blocks on the south shore, half an hour west, midway to Summerside and fifteen minutes from the Confederation Bridge. A working wharf, a playhouse, chocolate makers and lunch, which is the whole afternoon.

Tourism PEI Map

Point Prim

Point Prim Lighthouse

40 min drive

Forty minutes southeast down a long spit of red road: the oldest lighthouse on PEI and the only circular brick one in Canada. Climb it, then eat oysters at the chowder house near the point.

Map

Points East

Basin Head Provincial Park

1 hr 15 drive

Eighty kilometres northeast, about an hour and a quarter by Routes 2 and 16 along the Points East Coastal Drive, for the Singing Sands: silica fine enough to squeak underfoot. Pair it with Greenwich, which is 45 minutes back the way you came.

Tourism PEI Map

Borden-Carleton

Confederation Bridge and Borden-Carleton

50 min drive

Twelve point nine kilometres of bridge over the Northumberland Strait, about ten minutes to drive and roughly fifty from the city. The toll is charged only on the way off the Island, and it dropped to $20 for a car on 1 August 2025.

Official site Map

What's on

Festivals & annual events in Charlottetown (2026)

The dates the city plans its year around, February to New Year.

Feb

Jack Frost Winterfest

Four days over the Islander Day long weekend, 13 to 16 February in 2026, with ice slides, tube runs, sleigh rides, buskers and ice sculptures. The one reason to be here in winter.

Jun

Festival of Small Halls

Two weeks of music in more than 40 community halls across the Island, 12 to 21 June in 2026. Most venues are a drive from the capital, and that is the point of it.

Jun–Sep

The Charlottetown Festival

The Confederation Centre season. In 2026 that is Anne of Green Gables, The Musical from 25 June to 5 September and Come From Away from 2 July to 26 September.

Aug

Old Home Week

The Island's agricultural fair, 14 to 22 August in 2026 at the Eastlink Centre on Kensington Road: livestock, midway, harness racing and the Gold Cup Parade. It draws around 90,000 people.

Sep

PEI International Shellfish Festival

Four days on the Charlottetown Event Grounds at 360 Grafton Street, 17 to 20 September in 2026: oyster shucking, chowder competitions and a very large tent. The festival marks 30 years in 2026.

Sep–Oct

Fall Flavours Food & Drink Festival

Two weeks of harvest events across the Island, 24 September to 10 October in 2026, with chef dinners, lobster boils and shore excursions. Book the signature events well ahead.

Oct

Prince Edward Island Marathon

The 22nd running is 16 to 18 October 2026. The 5K and 10K go on the Saturday, the marathon, half and 16K on the Sunday, finishing in the city.

Nov–Jan

Charlottetown Christmas Festival

Six weeks of markets, lights and hot chocolate in the historic downtown, from 20 November 2026 to 2 January 2027. The Victorian Christmas Market is the centrepiece.

Getting around

Charlottetown transport & airports

Getting to an island, and getting around once you are on it.

YYG

Airport

Charlottetown Airport sits 8 kilometres north of downtown, about 15 minutes by car, and is the Island's only commercial airport. Car rental desks are in the terminal, which matters here more than in most cities: the beaches are not walkable.

Airport site

12.9 km

Confederation Bridge

The fixed link to New Brunswick lands at Borden-Carleton, about 50 minutes from the city, and takes roughly ten minutes to cross. The toll is charged only when you leave the Island, and it was cut to $20 for a car on 1 August 2025.

Bridge site

75 min

Ferry

Northumberland Ferries sails between Wood Islands in the southeast of PEI and Caribou, Nova Scotia, a 75-minute crossing that runs seasonally from spring into December. It is the scenic way in and the faster route to Cape Breton.

Ferry site

Buses and coaches

T3 Transit runs the city routes, including the airport link, with fares and timetables on its site. Maritime Bus, headquartered in Charlottetown, runs the coaches off-Island to Summerside, Moncton and Halifax.

T3 Transit Maritime Bus

Traditional food

Must-try dishes in Charlottetown, Canada

What the water and the red soil put on the table.

Lobster roll

Cold-picked lobster on a buttered bun, sold at every counter in the city and best at a lobster pound where the price tracks the season rather than the menu print run.

Malpeque oysters

Named for the bay on the north shore, sweet and briny, and voted among the world's best at the 1900 Paris exposition. Shucked to order on Sydney Street.

PEI blue mussels

The Island produces about 80 percent of Canada's cultivated mussels. Steamed in white wine or beer, served by the pound, and the cheapest good thing on most menus.

Seafood chowder

Thicker than the New England version and heavier on potato, which is the Island in a bowl. Every pub has one and the differences are real.

Lobster supper

A family-style sitting: chowder, mussels, rolls and a whole lobster, run by church halls and dining rooms out in the country. It is a fixed price and a fixed pace.

PEI potatoes

The red soil grows the crop the province is named for in every second sentence. Look for fish cakes, potato and salt cod bound together, on breakfast menus.

COWS ice cream

Made at the Capital Drive plant outside town and sold at the wharf. Wowie Cowie, the toffee and chocolate one, is the flavour the Island argues about least.

Avonlea Clothbound Cheddar

Aged in the cheese cave at COWS Creamery and given away in slivers on the factory tour. Harder to find off the Island than anything else on this list.

Charlottetown fact sheet

Charlottetown at a glance

The essentials worth knowing before you go.

Country

Canada

Region

Prince Edward Island

Population

38,809 in the city (2021 census)

Founded

Named for Queen Charlotte, incorporated as a city in 1855

Nickname

Birthplace of Confederation

Language

English

Currency

Canadian dollar (CAD)

Time zone

UTC-4 Atlantic, UTC-3 in summer

Calling code

+1 902

Airports

Charlottetown (YYG), 8 km north

Power

120V, 60Hz, plug types A and B

Emergency

911

Ideal length

2 days, 3 with a beach and Cavendish day

Getting around

Walk the downtown grid, rent a car for the beaches and Cavendish, T3 Transit for the airport and the suburbs

Tourism board

Official site

Interesting facts

The Charlottetown Conference sat from 1 to 9 September 1864, with five delegates from each Maritime colony and eight from the Province of Canada. Prince Edward Island hosted the talks that made the country and then declined to join it, holding out until 1 July 1873.
The city is named for Sophia Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, who married George III at seventeen and was queen consort for 57 years.
Anne of Green Gables, The Musical has played the Confederation Centre stage every summer since 1965 and holds the Guinness World Record for the longest-running annual musical theatre production. The streak ran unbroken to 2020, when the pandemic cancelled the season.
Province House, the building the 1864 conference met in, has been closed to visitors since 2015. The conservation project has cost close to $140 million against an original estimate of $20 million over three to five years, and Parks Canada expects to reopen it in the autumn of 2026.
At 38,809 people across 44.27 square kilometres in the 2021 census, Charlottetown is the least populous of Canada's ten provincial capitals, with a density of about 877 people per square kilometre.

Headed to Charlottetown?

Get our one-page Charlottetown cheat sheet plus a fresh destination every Thursday. Join 38,000 travelers.