Canada's smallest province has a way of sneaking up on you. Prince Edward Island sits quietly in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, red-soiled and ocean-fringed, shaped more like a crescent than the dramatic coastlines you find elsewhere. It doesn't boast mountain ranges or deep wilderness. What it has, instead, is everything laid bare and close at hand.
That restraint turns out to be exactly the point. A trail has emerged in recent years that asks walkers to slow down, move through the landscape on their own terms, and actually see the island from the ground. It's called the Island Walk, and its story is more interesting than any simple trail description can suggest.
From the moment you set foot on Prince Edward Island, it's nearly impossible to miss the Mars-red provincial soil. The dirt contains high amounts of iron-oxide, which literally causes the earth to rust and take on an autumnal hue. This red soil, paired with pine and birch forests, hidden coves, towering dunes, and fields of potato plants, makes PEI an environment built for slow wandering and savoring.
There are 63 lighthouses on the island, surprising in a province that is only 140 miles long and 40 miles at its widest point. With an average lighthouse for every 34 square miles, PEI has the highest concentration of lighthouses in North America. It's the kind of statistic that feels almost too neat, but it captures something real about the scale and character of the place.
Prince Edward Island, off Canada's eastern seaboard, is home to some of the country's most enchanting pastoral scenery. You'll find fields of potatoes and strawberries, beaches that stretch for miles, storybook villages, red-and-white wooden lighthouses, and docks anchoring fishing boats.
In 2016, Bryson Guptill and his partner Sue set out on a 34-day long-distance walk on the iconic Camino de Santiago. "That's really when the Island Walk was born," says Bryson. As the former president of Island Trails, a not-for-profit organization that actively supports the promotion, development, and enhancement of trails on Prince Edward Island, Bryson understood the complexities of planning long-distance walks. The idea percolated for a few years, and then in 2019, Bryson and Sue undertook another walk, this time in Portugal. "We stayed in charming bed and breakfasts, and it really reminded me of PEI," he says. "That's when the idea really began to gel."
Guptill worked with other members of Island Trails, a nonprofit organization run by volunteers, to research, design, and map out the long-distance trekking route using existing trails and secondary roads within the province. Once the route was laid out, Guptill and three friends hiked the entire 435-mile Island Walk over 32 days in autumn 2019. The Island Walk is a 700 km walking route around the circumference of PEI. The route uses the Confederation Trail (350 km), red dirt roads and paths (175 km), and the shoulder of quiet secondary roads (175 km). The route wouldn't include every harbour and bay, as that would have stretched to more than 1,200 km. Instead, the creators focused on an abbreviated path using secondary roads, red dirt roads, and the Island's Confederation Trail. The route would cover 700 km and would take at least a month to complete.
The Island Walk is divided into 32 sections with points of interest, terrain, average completion time, and amenities of the area outlined for each. While 435 miles is a trek, the sections range from seven to sixteen miles each. Nothing about the structure was accidental.
When the Canadian National Railway abandoned the PEI Railway in 1989, leaving behind the railbed, residents persuaded the local government to turn it into a cycling and walking path. That eventually became the Confederation Trail, which has grown to 280 miles long, with branches extending across the province. Built on the decommissioned railway line, the main trail is 273 kilometres from west to east, from Tignish to Elmira, and 449 kilometres in total. Branch trails run through small towns and communities including the heart of Charlottetown. The gradients along this rolled stone dust trail never exceed two per cent, making it suitable for all fitness levels.
As Guptill himself explained, "The Confederation Trail is great, but since it is a former railway, it runs down the middle of the island - the shortest distance from west to east." "In a sense, it misses the point. PEI is an island; people want to see the ocean." The Island Walk was designed specifically to fix that. Officially launched in September 2021, the trail combines the ease of a walk through the park with a pilgrimage that offers a sense of real accomplishment and an opportunity for reflection, like other great walks around the world.
Covid's social distancing rekindled widespread interest in long outdoor walks, and by the time PEI began welcoming back summer and fall visitors, the Island Walk had been covered by National Geographic and Lonely Planet. Hundreds of walkers were showing up, hiking poles in hand. During the pandemic, the only people who did the walk were Islanders who live there. "In a sense, that was a blessing," Guptill says. "We heard about things we could improve - like signage. We now have signs at every turn." That early feedback shaped what the trail eventually became.
Half the trek takes place on the Island's hard-packed Confederation Trail; the other half takes walkers through red dirt roads, paved paths, boardwalks, grassy shoulders, and many silent secondary roads. Much of it is, to the imaginative, the road less traveled. The Island Walk is open year-round, though most hikers will likely opt to use it between May and November. The proximity to towns means that each day-hike requires little more than good walking shoes and a small daypack of supplies. Many accommodations provide multi-night stays, driving walkers to and from the trail each day. That means you don't have to carry a heavy pack - you can just focus on the beauty of the island countryside and the ocean vistas. It's a practical detail that opens the walk to people who aren't seasoned backpackers.
If you've been lured to PEI by the popular red-haired girl and the area that inspired her creator, Lucy Maud Montgomery, one section of the Walk gives you the choice of walking through Cavendish, where Montgomery spent most of her childhood, or taking a route through Prince Edward Island National Park. Both access places such as Montgomery Park, the author's Cavendish Home, and the National Historic Green Gables Heritage Place. Among the lighthouses along the route, Cape Bear Lighthouse, built in 1881, is where Marconi Operator Thomas Bartlett received the first-in-Canada distress call from the Titanic on April 14, 1912. That kind of layered history appears without warning throughout the walk, tucked into small buildings and quiet headlands.
The route takes in the North Cape, passing windmills, windy cliffs, and the North Cape Lighthouse. The North Cape trail takes you right along the iconic red cliffs where the waters of the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the Northumberland Strait meet, treating you to some incredible ocean views as you wander along the coast.
Feedback from participants has been very positive. Betty Hope Gibbons, an avid walker from Ontario who completed the full walk at 85 years old, enjoyed the experience so much that she dedicated her time to getting rest benches installed along its route - and secured donations for 25 of the benches. As of that writing, there are now 35 rest benches installed along the route. Another bonus is that "people end up making friends," says Bryson. "Participants often cross paths with the same people several times over their trip, and in some cases, stay in the same bed and breakfasts, so they really have time to get to know each other."
That critical mass of walkers is already having an impact on how some trail-adjacent inns and restaurants choose to approach the seasonal window for business. Two nights into one journalist's walk, they found themselves at the Johnson Shore Inn, an elegant guest house perched atop red cliffs overlooking the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The owners were still welcoming travelers even as much of the island was shutting down for the winter.
As Guptill puts it, "People spend more time on the island and really get to experience its beauty and charm in depth." He also notes that the walk caters to the shoulder season - May, June, September, and October - so it prolongs the tourist season for local businesses. September, when the weather is still warm but not too hot and school is back in session, is the busiest month for Island Walk participants.
In 2024, the Island welcomed 1.7 million visitors, generating $520.7 million in direct visitor spending to the province's local economy. Prince Edward Island set another tourism record in 2025, with a 10 per cent increase in visitors over 2024, welcoming 1.87 million tourists. Visitor spending was also up 12.4 per cent over that year, well above the national average of 4.4 per cent. Prince Edward Island's tourism industry accounts for approximately 6 per cent of the province's gross domestic product, three times the national average, and supports 8,900 full-time equivalent jobs annually in communities across the province. Active trails like the Island Walk are part of what drives that year-round momentum.
The Island Walk is built on a spirit of connection - connecting people to the outdoors, to Prince Edward Island's unique landscapes, and to one another. That statement, simple as it sounds, tends to be confirmed by most people who finish the route. By international standards, the Walk is not technically difficult, with options for everyone. Those who have taken pilgrimages in other parts of the world, be it the El Camino or the Appalachian Trail, know that such a trek is not just about the walking. The inner distance covered often ends up feeling longer than the outer one.
Along the way, people will find beautiful ocean views, picturesque backroads, cafes, museums, inns, and landscapes that remind you that postcards exist for a reason. In the years since its founding, the walk has been gaining popularity steadily. Guptill estimates that about 50 people did the walk in 2021, and walkers planning to do some or all of it can receive an Island Walk passport, similar to the credential issued by the Camino de Santiago. As Bryson notes, "The Island Walk is always evolving. We're continuing to make route enhancements and develop partnerships with local businesses all over the island." That ongoing attention to detail sets it apart from trails that are simply marked and then left alone.
Pre-pandemic, PEI was already making a name for itself as a trail hub in the Atlantic region. The new walk may be one of the island's most accessible for beginning hikers. The Confederation Trail section offers crushed-stone paths and a maximum three-percent grade elevation, which novice walkers will appreciate. There are no big stony climbs or arduous mountains to traverse. Bryson Guptill has written a guidebook with tips on each leg of the journey. According to AllTrails, the Island Walk is the longest trail in Prince Edward Island, estimated at approximately 432 miles. For a province its size, that's a remarkable achievement - and it all started because someone walked across Spain and came home thinking his own island deserved the same kind of attention.
The Island Walk doesn't promise transformation. It doesn't need to. It simply asks you to put one foot in front of the other along a red-dirt road, past a lighthouse that received a distress call over a century ago, through a village where dinner is ready and someone will want to hear how your day went. That turns out to be more than enough.