P. NEEVE, YERONGA, QLD

Eastern Canada has an overabundance of gorgeous scenery and invigorating cities. On the other hand, the temptation to include New York City is hard to resist, especially for those teenagers, so I'd say go for it. You could include other US cities but NYC deserves five days at the very least, and you might be pushed for time if you try to include anything more.

A great way to do this would be to hire a car from Toronto, drive to NYC and leave it there. According to a local Avis agent based in Toronto, it quite often happens that car-hire operators in that city will end up with US-registered cars in their lot that must be returned, and they'll waive the usually steep one-way fee. The only way to find this out is to ring around the various operators when you get there; you won't find out over the internet. If this appeals, you could drive from Toronto to Montreal – another great city – then head south through Vermont, western Massachusetts and along the Hudson River Valley to NYC. Here's the icing on the cake – since it sounds like you might be doing this in late September, your timing is perfect for the "leaf peeping season", when autumn brings an amber blush to the rural landscape, creating heart-melting scenes at every turn in the road. The classic leaf-peepers route is Vermont's north-south Route 100, a wandering delight, which you can pick up if you cross the Canada-US border at Stanstead, 160 kilometres south-east of Montreal.

I'm totally on board with your preference for soft-sided cases since they weigh less, but there are now plenty of polycarbonate cases around and they're light as well as rugged, and well worth a look. My Samsonite 55cm polycarbonate case which I bought with frequent flyer points has been my most-used carry-on for about the last five years. It's been tossed in with the checked baggage several times and it is scratched but still perfectly functional, with years of misuse and abuse ahead of it.