Tell you what, most folks south of the border couldn't find New Brunswick on a map if you spotted them Nova Scotia first. That's a shame, because the Acadian Coastal Drive up the eastern shore of that province is about as pretty a stretch of coastal road as you'll find anywhere. The folks at Driving.ca recently ran the route in a 2026 Buick Envision, and I read their writeup twice, partly for the road and partly because I wanted to see how a comfy little crossover held up out there.

The drive itself runs through Acadian country, French-speaking villages strung along the Northumberland Strait like beads on a line. You've got fishing wharves, lighthouses, the sand dunes at Bouctouche, and the kind of small-town bakeries where the person behind the counter actually knows the name of the person in front of you. It reminds me of the Ozarks in one way, the pace of it. Folks wave at you whether they know you or not, and supper is an event, not a refueling stop.

Now the Envision. It's not a truck and it's not trying to be one. It's Buick's family crossover, and for a paved coastal route with sweepers and sea breeze, I reckon it's about the right tool. I haven't driven one myself, so I won't put words in the Driving.ca crew's mouths about their verdict, but the whole pitch Buick is selling these days is what their marketing folks call quiet luxury, and I'll say this: after enough hours on a two-lane, a hushed cabin stops sounding like a luxury and starts sounding like a mercy.

I've said before that the car matters less than people think. Some of my best drives have been in vehicles with half the Envision's features, and the Acadian coast would be gorgeous from the seat of a rusty S-10. But I'll admit there's a floor to that argument. You want comfortable seats, decent climate control, and enough cargo room for a cooler and a couple of duffel bags, because coastal towns shut down early and you don't want to be hunting for a missing charging cable at 9 p.m. in Caraquet. I'd expect the Envision to clear that floor without breaking a sweat.

What I like about a trip like this is that it's a reminder our northern neighbors have back roads worth burning a tank on, same as we do. We get so fixed on Route 66 and the Blue Ridge that we forget there's a whole other highway culture a day's drive northeast. The Acadian Shore has its own food, its own music, its own language on the shop signs. You come back knowing a few French words you didn't know before, and probably a couple pounds heavier from the poutine râpée, which is a proper Acadian dumpling dish and worth the trip by itself.

If I were planning the run myself, I'd do it in September or early October, same as I'd tell anybody. The summer crowds are gone, the lobster is still coming in, and the light on the water in the evening will make you pull over and just stand there a minute. Take the gravel pull-offs slow, watch for fog rolling in off the strait, and don't skip the smallest villages, because that's where the good stuff always hides. Same rule there as it is here.

My own fall trip through the Ozarks is coming up, and reading about somebody else's coastal run has me itchy to get moving. Different coastline, same idea. Get out, roll the windows down, and see what's down the road, because that's the whole point of the thing.