Pricey cottage rentals stretching vacation budget for some Canadians

Some governments have introduced incentives for those looking to holiday close to home in an effort to help the tourism sector, which was hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Kelly Doherty had to make some compromises when she booked her cottage retreat this year.

Her big family getaway to a cabin in Parry Sound, Ont., has been scaled back and shifted north to account for rising costs and tighter supply.

“Every year we’d go to the same cottage for the same week, and my son and his family would rent the next cottage down from us for the same week,” she said.

“Since COVID started, they got a rush of people from Toronto wanting to get out of the city and go out there. And so they jacked the prices up and they got all these people in, and our cottages weren’t available to us anymore for the weeks we wanted.”

Instead, Doherty and her husband will spend a week together at a cabin on Manitoulin Island that costs $1,800 to rent, and her son’s family will go cottaging separately.

The solution works, Doherty said, but it leaves something to be desired.

“Laying on the beach with the grandkids while they swim in the water, and … sitting out on the deck or covered porch and watching the thunderstorms and the rain on the lake _ it’s just an experience that everybody needs,” she said.

But she said high demand, and even higher prices, has left that experience out of reach for many, to the point that people may opt to stray farther afield when they want to get away.