Destin-Nation Canada: Adventure with a Capital Eh (PHOTOS)

If Mexico is America's back yard, fenced in places and cluttered with the remains of yesterday's projects, Canada is the front lawn: The north country is green, welcoming and perfect for a roll in the grass.

In the popular imagination, Canadians are guileless and affably naive, but in reality they must be a cagey lot. All those Bullwinkles have squirreled away more than their fair share of natural beauty. Bookended by New Foundland and Nova Scotia and Vancouver Island in the west, Canada is Choc-A-Bloc with mountains, forests, prairies and tundra, most of which are both accessible and empty.

In the winter months Canada offers myriad skiing, skating, tobogganing, luging, tubing, ice-climbing and snow ball fighting options and there is no less to do come summer, when adventurers can head to the coasts for water sports or make a stab at various and sun-dried peaks.

And the place could not be more accessible. Make a wrong turn in New Hampshire: Hello Canada. Turn right at Seattle: Welcome to Canada. Board an American or Alaska Airlines flight from New York or Chicago to Vancouver: Boom, Canada.

Photo: BMeunier/Flickr