Kawartha Lakes is a region rather than a city, and most of what you come for is on the water. The Trent-Severn Waterway runs north-south through the middle of the municipality, threading together a chain of large lakes — Pigeon, Sturgeon, Cameron, Balsam — through historic locks at Bobcaygeon and Fenelon Falls. The lockside villages are the social centres of the area in summer: ice cream, antique shops, lift bridges, and tied-up cruisers.
Inland, Lindsay is the largest town and has the only real downtown, with a small theatre, museum, and a busy farmer's market. The provincial park at Balsam Lake has the best public beach. For something more unusual, walk out across the deck of Doube's Trestle Bridge, a hundred-year-old railway viaduct now repurposed as part of the Victoria Rail Trail.