If your idea of travelling with tunes means toting your own guitar or fiddle, check out  www.thesession.org, an international website that lists informal music gatherings all around the world. 

To find out where to connect with local musicians while you’re in town, just plug in your travel date or location and the site will quickly return a list of on-going sessions.

(But since it won’t say how recently the information was updated, you’d be wise to double-check the details with a quick phone call.) 

Depending on where your Canadian travels take you, you might, for example, join the Monday-night jam at O’Leary’s Pub in Saint John, New Brunswick, or the one on Saturday afternoons at The Friar’s Pub in Calgary, Alberta. 

There are plenty of sessions to choose from, and while they tend to thin out as you move east to west—Maritime Canada and Quebec are famous for deep musical roots—there are pockets of Celtic keeners right across Ontario and the Prairies through to the West Coast.

And even if  you don’t play yourself, you’ll find session musicians welcome an appreciative audience—no ticket required. The one that happens in my backyard–the semi-monthly Snug session on Bowen Island–is more like a cozy kitchen party than a formal performance.

Just buy a pint or a cup o’ tea and settle in somewhere comfy for a couple of hours of homespun (but never hokey) entertainment.