Where to stay in Toronto
4 stopsUpdated July 2026
Toronto is enormous, the metro area is over six million, and flat, but its subway is surprisingly small for that size: in practice there are two useful lines drawing a U, one running up and down through the centre and one crossing east to west. Being inside that U matters far more than the charm of whichever neighbourhood you pick.
What does reach everywhere is the streetcar: Toronto has the largest streetcar network in North America, and it’s slow but it covers what the subway doesn’t. With that in mind the decision simplifies: either you sleep downtown and have everything close and expensive, or you sleep in a neighbourhood with life and add twenty minutes.
The route, stop by stop
4 STOPS- 01
Downtown
The financial centre, with the CN Tower, Union Station and the skyscrapers. It’s where nearly all the chain hotels are and where the location is unbeatable: the airport train arrives at Union, the island ferry leaves from here and the subway runs underneath.
And it has one advantage specific to this city that you don’t appreciate until January: you’re on top of the PATH, so you can eat, shop and catch the subway without going outside when it’s fifteen below out there.
The trade-off is the usual one: at night, once the office workers leave, the area goes fairly dead and you have to move to eat. Fine for two nights. Not for a week.
- 02
West Queen West and Trinity Bellwoods
West of downtown, along Queen Street, is the Toronto people remember: low Victorian houses turned into shops, galleries, bars, and a park, Trinity Bellwoods, which on summer weekends is half the city’s living room. It’s the liveliest area in the city and where you eat best.
The practical detail to accept: the subway doesn’t reach here. You take the Queen streetcar, which is slow, it stops at every corner and shares the lane with cars, but it comes constantly. Downtown is a long twenty minutes.
If you’re here more than three nights and want to be where things happen, this is the area, and the streetcar is the toll.
- 03
The Annex
North of downtown, around the University of Toronto, with late nineteenth-century brick houses, streets with big trees and quiet neighbourhood life. It has a subway (it’s on the curve of the U, so you reach both branches) and it’s ten minutes from the ROM and Casa Loma.
It’s probably the best balance in the city: genuinely central, reasonably priced, with places to eat without going anywhere, and with trees, which in a city of skyscrapers and concrete is not nothing.
Jane Jacobs lived here for the last thirty years of her life, the urbanist who killed the urban expressway plans and whose ideas explain why this neighbourhood is still standing: she moved from New York to Toronto and won the same fight twice.
- 04
The Danforth and the east
Across the valley to the east, the Danforth is Toronto’s Greek quarter: Greek signage, tavernas, and in August a festival that closes the whole avenue and fills the street with people for three days. Line 2 of the subway runs underneath it, so downtown is fifteen minutes.
It’s cheaper than the west and considerably quieter, with residential streets of narrow Victorian houses and gardens. It’s the choice if you’re with family or if you want a normal city rather than a going-out zone.
And it has the east’s best secret: the Don river valley, which splits the city in two, is an enormous wild park with trails you can walk or cycle from downtown to the lake without crossing a road.
Frequently asked
Where should you stay in Toronto?
The Annex is the best balance: central, with a subway, with trees and reasonably priced. Downtown if you want everything at hand and the PATH underneath in winter, though it goes dead at night. West Queen West has the life and the food but no subway, only streetcars. The Danforth is cheaper and has a subway.
Is Toronto’s subway any good?
It’s small for the size of the city: in practice there are two useful lines drawing a U. Being inside that U matters more than the neighbourhood. What does reach everywhere is the streetcar network, the largest in North America: slow, but it covers what the subway doesn’t.