New Brunswick Attractions, Ranked and Ready

Think you’ve seen New Brunswick? Think again.

This is our no-filter roundup of 50 places that actually live up to the hype, and a few that only locals know about. Yes, there are waterfalls. Yes, there are roadside oddities. But we’ve also got island ferries, retro diners, and trails that feel like they were pulled straight out of a film set. Whether you're road-tripping, day-tripping, or just trying to remember why you live here, this list is your cheat sheet.

Thrills, Hills, and Saltwater Spills

For those seeking Zip lines, tidal bores, and backcountry trails that leave you sore and smug. This is New Brunswick’s wild side. more adventurous experiences in NB, here's a list of New Brunswick attractions tailored to thrill-seekers and adventure enthusiasts.

1. Jet Boat Through the Reversing Falls, Saint John

It’s loud, it’s wet, and it feels like a theme park slammed into geology class. Hop on a jet boat and tear through the churning whitewater of the Reversing Falls rapids, where the Bay of Fundy and the Saint John River basically fistfight. Goggles optional. Dry clothes mandatory.

2. Hike the Fundy Footpath

This isn’t your casual dog-walk trail. The Fundy Footpath is a 41-kilometre coastal grind that rewards you with epic views, beachside campsites, and the kind of muscle soreness that lasts for days. Instagram never saw it coming.

3. Zip Through the Trees at TreeGO Mactaquac

Part obstacle course, part aerial panic attack, in the best way. This treetop adventure park near Fredericton has zip lines, rope swings, and wobbly bridges that make you question your balance, your courage, and sometimes your life choices.

4. Sea Kayak the Hopewell Rocks

Paddling next to 70-foot rock formations while the tide literally races in under your boat? It’s the kind of surreal, quiet, goosebump-y experience that people book entire vacations for. Also: excellent arm workout.

5. Go Biking at Sugarloaf Provincial Park

Snow? What snow? Rent bike and tackle Mount Sugarloaf winter trails like the badass you are. It's the closest you’ll get to mountain biking in New Brunswick.

6. Tidal Bore Rafting on the Petitcodiac

It’s like whitewater rafting but in reverse. When the Bay of Fundy’s record-breaking tide surges into the Petitcodiac River, it creates a rare tidal bore wave that you can literally ride. You will scream. You will love it.

7. Off-Road Through Sussex on an ATV Trail

This isn't your uncle’s backyard trail ride. The Sussex area is crisscrossed with official ATV routes through forests, fields, and mud puddles big enough to swallow your boots. Helmets, snacks, and a sense of humour required.

8. Climb Minister’s Face, Saint John

Rock climbing with a view of the city skyline? Minister’s Face gives you that and more, a towering slab of climbing routes perched above the Reversing Falls gorge. Even if you’re just belaying, it’s an unbeatable place to flex.

9. Tube the Miramichi River

Take a lazy float through one of New Brunswick’s most iconic rivers, beer in hand and sun on your face. The current does the work while you tan, chat, and maybe contemplate your life choices. Pro tip: tie your tubes together with a snack bag in the middle.

10. Paddleboard Through Kouchibouguac’s Lagoon

This coastal national park doesn’t just sound fun to say. It’s also home to calm, shallow lagoons that are perfect for stand-up paddleboarding. Bonus: you’ll glide past sandbars, seals, and salt marshes like a true East Coast chill god.

Art, Chocolate, and Other Cultured Delights

From abstract oils to historic truffles, New Brunswick’s cultural scene is as quirky as it is world-class.

1. Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Fredericton

Dali. Literally Dali. This flagship gallery houses one of Canada’s most impressive permanent collections, thanks in part to Lord Beaverbrook’s deep wallet and deeper ego. The space recently got a slick modern expansion and now balances European masters with rotating East Coast powerhouses.

2. Chocolate Museum, St. Stephen

Yes, this is real. Yes, you can eat the exhibits. St. Stephen claims to be Canada’s chocolate capital, and this museum, inside the original Ganong candy factory, walks you through 150 years of caramels, cream-filleds, and curiosity-sparking samples. Worth the sugar crash.

3. Sunbury Shores Arts & Nature Centre, St. Andrews

Part gallery, part retreat, part seaside think space. This arts centre offers exhibits, artist residencies, and hands-on workshops that let you paint the Fundy coast before your coffee even cools. Bonus: it’s in one of the prettiest towns in the province.

4. Saint John Arts Centre

Once a stone-walled library, now a cultural core. This gallery-slash-performance-space hosts contemporary art shows, music, spoken word, and whatever else the city’s creative set cooks up. The vibe is grassroots meets gallery opening, and somehow it works.

5. Galerie d’art Louise-et-Reuben-Cohen, Moncton

Housed inside a converted chapel on the Université de Moncton campus, this contemporary art gallery punches way above its weight. Expect bold, bilingual exhibitions that lean concept-heavy and occasionally weird, in the best possible way.

6. New Brunswick College of Craft & Design Galleries, Fredericton

A not-so-secret source of cool, handmade everything. The NBCCD gallery showcases emerging and established artists from their nationally respected craft programs. Think ceramic sculpture, fashion, jewellery, and fibre art with edge.

7. McAdam Railway Station

A full-sized clue board come to life. This 1901 Tudor-style station is a national historic site, a time capsule, and allegedly haunted. They even serve a legendary railway pie in the original lunchroom. History with whipped cream.

8. Kings Landing Historical Settlement

Yes, it’s a bit cosplay but it’s also legitimately impressive. This 19th-century village includes costumed interpreters, heritage trades, livestock, and open fires crackling under cast iron. Somewhere between a school trip and a heritage-core Instagram shoot.

9. Le Pays de la Sagouine, Bouctouche

A full Acadian village on its own island, dreamed up by novelist Antonine Maillet and brought to life by folkloric theatre, seafood, and step dancing. It’s like walking into a musical, only with a lobster roll at intermission.

10. Harvest Music Festival, Fredericton (seasonal)

For one glorious week in September, downtown Fredericton swaps laptops for saxophones and becomes a sweaty, whiskey-splashed shrine to live music. Think: neon tents, late-night sets, street food, and surprise jams in pub corners. It started as a jazz fest, but now it's everything from blues to indie rock to someone shredding on a fiddle at 2 a.m. Bonus: it still feels local, even when the lineup says otherwise.

Where the Past Still Shows Up to Work

Lighthouses, battlefields, and living museums that do more than collect dust. This is New Brunswick’s history with personality.

1. Carleton Martello Tower, Saint John

A Napoleonic stone turret with a view, this 1813 fort has served as a wartime lookout, prison, and general buzzkill for invading forces. These days, you’ll climb a spiral staircase for panoramic harbour views and a quick reminder that Canada has deeper military roots than maple syrup.

2. Village Historique Acadien, Caraquet

This sprawling Acadian time warp is like stepping onto the set of a heritage drama, complete with smoke curling out of clay ovens and characters who won’t drop the accent. It’s immersive, educational, and occasionally smells like barn. Which is the point.

3. Fort Beauséjour – Fort Cumberland, Aulac

A grassy cliffside ruin with French-English war tension baked into its stone foundations. Bring sturdy shoes and a curiosity about 18th-century siege strategy. Or just come for the drone-worthy coastal views and the “I had no idea this was here” factor.

4. Cape Enrage Lighthouse

It’s not the tallest or oldest, but it may be New Brunwick’s most dramatic lighthouse. Perched on a cliff that’s constantly trying to erode out from under it, this working lighthouse feels like a Maritime mood board: fog, sea spray, crashing waves, and existential beauty. Bonus: there's a café and zip line.

5. Loyalist House, Saint John

One of the oldest residential homes in Saint John, this Georgian-style mansion is heavy on antiques, creaky floors, and colonial tension. Take the guided tour for spicy Loyalist gossip and a reminder that wealth always had a chandelier.

6. Old Government House, Fredericton

Lieutenant Governors don’t host balls here anymore, but you can tour their old digs and, yes, they’re stately. The Old Government House oozes 19th-century political pomp: velvet drapes, arched ceilings, and enough royal portraits to outfit a period drama.

7. St. Andrews Blockhouse National Historic Site

Built during the War of 1812, this St. Andrews seaside fortification is now a selfie stop with cannons. It’s compact but cool, with interpretive panels and views of Passamaquoddy Bay that make you want to pull out a sketchbook (or a drone).

8. Roosevelt Cottage, Campobello Island

Technically in Canada, historically American. This summer retreat of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt has wraparound porches, vintage dinnerware, and a political nostalgia that pairs nicely with whale watching and briny air. FDR liked it here—you probably will too.

9. John Fisher Memorial Museum, Kingston

A pint-sized but surprisingly rich Kingston museum filled with artifacts, military regalia, and a potato-harvesting machine or two. It's charming, weirdly detailed, and exactly the kind of place where someone’s great-grandfather has a whole room dedicated to him.

10. Saint John City Market

Canada’s oldest continuously operating farmer’s market is less “quaint craft fair” and more “cathedral of chaos.” The building’s inverted ship-hull ceiling nods to the city’s shipbuilding past, while vendors sling everything from fresh fish to Jamaican patties under its red-brick arches. Come for the architecture, stay for the pierogies.

Views You’ll Pretend You Hiked to Get

Coastal cliffs, covered bridges, and waterfalls worth the mosquito bites. New Brunswick shows off in the wild.

1. Walton Glen Gorge – The Grand Canyon of New Brunswick

It’s dramatic, remote, and wildly underrated. Walton Glen carves a deep scar through the forested landscape, with lookouts that make your stomach flutter (in a good way). The Eye of the Needle trail leads you into a mossy canyon that feels like a secret garden built by giants. Pack a lunch, and maybe hiking poles.

2. Fundy National Park

Waterfalls, ravines, mossy trails, and cliffside lookouts that make you forget to check for cell service (you won’t have it anyway). This park’s terrain shifts from thick forest to rocky shoreline in the span of a hike. Bring your camera and your quads.

3. Greenlaw Mountain Lookout, Charlotte County

No crowds, no entry fee, no nonsense, just a fire tower and a 360-degree view that feels like your own personal drone shot. The 3.9km trail is more of a climb than a hike, but the summit lookout delivers ridge-line panoramas stretching into Maine on a clear day. Greenlaw Mountain lookout is one of those spots where you half expect to see a moose, a bald eagle, and your own inner peace—all at once.

4. Kellys Beach Boardwalk, Kouchibouguac

This 1km stretch of wooden boardwalk cuts through salt marshes to one of the warmest ocean beaches in the country. It’s all wildflowers, birdsong, and sea breeze until you hit the sand, and then it’s just swimsuits and smiles.

5. Falls Brook Falls

New Brunswick’s tallest waterfall drops 100 feet over a forested rock face and feels completely undiscovered. A short hike gets you close enough to feel the mist, and a longer loop trail gives you forest fairy energy. Wear decent shoes.

6. St. Martins Sea Caves

Explore these sculpted sandstone caves by foot at low tide, then grab chowder across the street and watch them disappear underwater. They're wild, dramatic, and feel like something a fantasy novel would use as a portal.

7. Grand Falls Gorge

This dramatic gorge on the Saint John River features churning whitewater in spring and craggy cliffs year-round. There’s a suspension bridge, zip line, and the kind of view that makes you instinctively hold your phone horizontal.

8. Hays Falls Lookout, Nackawic

Tucked just off the Trans-Canada Highway, this hidden-gem lookout offers a killer view of the Saint John River and the surrounding hills. It’s an easy pull-off with big payoff—and a great detour if you’re already visiting the giant axe. Not a long hike, but a satisfying one.

9. Cape Jourimain Nature Centre

Where the land ends and the bridge begins. This lesser-known park hugs the NB side of the Confederation Bridge with a mix of walking trails, beach, and birdwatching platforms. You’ll get peak coastal zen and a panoramic view of 12.9km of concrete engineering.

10. Swallowtail Lighthouse Trail, Grand Manan

This scenic trail winds around the island’s most photogenic lighthouse, with dramatic Fundy cliff views and just enough elevation to feel earned. Show up at sunrise if you want your “wow” moment without the crowds. Bonus: whales, if you're lucky.

The Big Axe and Other Beautifully Weird Stuff

Oversized objects, potato museums, and blink-and-you-miss-it roadside gems. You can’t make this list up (but someone did).

1. World’s Largest Axe, Nackawic

Built to symbolize the town’s lumber heritage, this six-storey axe is either brilliant branding or a Paul Bunyan fever dream. Climb the base, read the plaque, and then stand beside it awkwardly while someone takes your photo. It’s tradition.

2. World’s Largest Lobster, Shediac

This massive crustacean sculpture is part roadside gimmick, part civic icon. Kids climb on it. Tourists pose with it. Locals roll their eyes at it. Still—if you didn’t get a lobster pic in Shediac, were you even there?

3. Potato World Museum, Florenceville-Bristol

Some people travel for art. Others travel for starch. This temple to the humble spud includes potato memorabilia, deep-fried facts, and a very serious display about French fries. It’s both tongue-in-cheek and weirdly wholesome. Much like the potato itself.

4. Magnetic Hill, Moncton

Your car rolls uphill. No, really. This gravity-defying illusion has been blowing minds since before GPS, and even if it’s a trick of the landscape, the moment your car starts coasting the wrong way feels like sorcery. Bonus points for the retro signage.

5. Llamazing Adventures, Haut-Lamèque

Yes, it’s a llama farm. And yes, you can walk them on leashes like oversized, judgmental dogs. The vibe is part petting zoo, part coastal stroll, part therapy session with eyelashes. The selfies alone are worth the drive.

6. Area 506 Container Village, Saint John

Imagine if a shipping yard threw a street party and forgot to stop. This waterfront village is built entirely from stacked, painted shipping containers—each one home to a local vendor, bar, gallery, or food spot. There’s live music, picnic tables, beer taps, and the occasional container full of merch you didn’t know you needed. It’s peak Saint John: gritty, creative, and cooler than it has any right to be.

7. Huntsman Marine Science Centre, St. Andrews

Part aquarium, part research lab, part “hey, can I touch that?” experience. The Huntsman Marine Science Centre is home to seals, sea stars, and tanks filled with creatures you didn’t realize had teeth. The touch pool is a crowd-pleaser (unless you're squeamish), and the underwater viewing tunnel makes you feel like you're walking through a David Attenborough outtake. It’s sciencey, salty, and surprisingly stylish—for a place that smells faintly of herring.

8. World’s Largest Fiddleheads, Plaster Rock

Not edible. Not subtle. These towering green spirals outside Plaster Rock’s welcome centre pay tribute to the foraged veggie nobody outside Atlantic Canada quite understands. They’re weirdly elegant for a roadside photo op and deeply NB in spirit.

9. World’s Longest Covered Bridge, Hartland

It’s 1,282 feet of creaky charm and rural engineering. Drive through it. Walk through it. Count the cobwebs. Whether you're into history or just bridges that give your GPS a nervous twitch, it’s worth the detour.

10. Andrew and Laura McCain Art Gallery, Florenceville-Bristol

Tiny town. Big art energy. This small-but-mighty gallery regularly showcases bold, experimental exhibits that wouldn’t feel out of place in a Toronto pop-up—only here, it’s surrounded by potato fields. Expect printmaking, sculpture, fibre art, and the occasional “what am I looking at?” moment. It’s equal parts highbrow and homemade, and admission is free (because of course it is).

Whether you're in it for the giant lobsters, haunted lighthouses, llama walks, or low-key coastline hikes, these New Brunswick attractions are proof the province knows how to surprise you. Some are iconic, some are offbeat, and some are so strange they defy categorization—but every one of them is worth the stop. Road trip season or not, there’s no better excuse to see how weird, wild, and weirdly beautiful New Brunswick can be.