Simon Calder's Holiday Helpdesk: Can you advise on a wedding trip holiday in Nova Scotia?

Q. We have been invited to a wedding in Halifax, Nova Scotia in August. Can you recommend a flight route or holiday package at a reasonable cost? We are based in Istanbul but could travel to London to commence our journey.

It seems Nova Scotia is not a traditional holiday destination for Europeans unless visiting and staying with family. We would like to hire a car and tour around staying in hotels/motels. We do not have a precise budget as we have only just received the wedding invitation, we would like to keep costs down as we have already booked our main holiday later in the year.

Eileen Wainwright

A. Nova Scotia is a superb province, combining a fabulous coastline and rich history with a warm history. The air fare will be upwards of £1,000 return, whether you book a through-ticket from Istanbul via one or more intermediate points, or book a no-frills flight to Gatwick (eg on easyJet) and transfer to a flight on Air Transat, the main leisure carrier to Canada.

I advise you to choose the former - through a global website such as Opodo or Expedia, or a good travel agent in Canada. First, you get a much wider choice of dates (Air Transat flies only on Wednesdays). Also, if anything goes wrong with the first sector from Istanbul, the airlines have a responsibility to look after you.

The best source for on-the-ground information is the new second edition of the Bradt Guide to Nova Scotia by David Orkin, published two months ago: http://bit.ly/BradtNS. Note that the province has a fairly short tourist season, and at this late stage many places will be getting booked; so start planning now.

Click HERE to email Simon.

You can also tweet him your questions @SimonCalder

Follow @_SimonCalder