As the battered Pontiac lurches round the corner, through a rolling valley and over a wooden bridge, my eye is caught by a movement in the water. Two children sitting on inflated inner tubes are holding hands and shrieking with laughter, as the bubbling stream threatens to carry them away. The sun sparkles on the water and there are no adults in sight. Later, as we stop for directions in a tiny garage, another group of kids comes in, giggling, goose-pimpled and hunting for ice cream.

“Remember when school was out for the summer and you had six weeks of just doing nothing?” my guide says. I smile and nod. But are British summers ever really like this any more? That dream – of sunshine every day, disappearing for hours on end without parental supervision and coming back exhausted and happy from a day spent outdoors with friends – may have existed once, but it certainly doesn’t today. Fear of crime and dangerous drivers means even the most independent of children are more likely to spend their summers at organised camps, or inside playing video games, than outside making their own fun.

Not in Nova Scotia. It might be only a six-hour flight and four time zones away, but visiting this small province of Canada is like travelling 50 years back in time. Here, rush hour means five cars; there are only about 50 people per square mile (compared with 1,000 in England) and strangers are friendly, not ferocious. Ask for directions and you’ll get a whole bunch of them joining in to help. Summers are a lot hotter than you might think: temperatures in the province, which is on the same latitude as Bordeaux (it even produces wine), hit the high 20s last week. And the best thing about Nova Scotia? You can pick up an oceanfront home in which to while away the summer for less than £150,000.

“Buying property here is familiar – it’s an accessible place,” says Tim Harris, director of Tradewinds Realty, which has 40 agents covering Nova Scotia, and with an office in London. “There’s no great feeling of abandoning the British way of life, but it’s a little piece of paradise.”

Paul and Pat Wickington fell in love with the province earlier this year. In March the couple, who are both retired, spent £115,000 on a three-bedroom house just outside Shelburne, on the peninsula’s South Shore. “We were fed up with the UK – it’s expensive and far too crowded,” says Paul, 57, a former accountant. “In Canada, the people are fantastic – you walk down the street and they say hello. You can sit at the back of our house and see whales in the ocean – a bit different from looking at the M25.” The couple, whoown a property in Florida, plan to divide their time between Canada and the USA, returning occasionally to their two-bed house in Cambridgeshire to see family and friends.

The South Shore, which stretches from the provincial capital, Halifax, to Yar-mouth, on the west coast, is the most popular with overseas visitors. Here you will find pretty coastal villages such as Lunenburg – a cross between a Cornish fishing village and a Norwegian fjord-side town – and long, sandy beaches, such as the one at White Point, in Queens County. The further you get from Halifax, the cheaper the properties become. Lakefront, as opposed to oceanfront, property is also less expensive.

Dave and Kathryn Young, who run a hotel in Hawnby, North Yorkshire, bought a two-bed cottage on Ponhook Lake, near Liverpool, on the South Shore, for £68,000 in 2004. The couple visit at least once a year with their children, Isobel, 6, and Matthew, 4. “It’s a great family holiday,” says Dave, 40, who is originally from Canada. “It’s quiet, it’s safe, it’s private and they do things like community fairs all the time, which is fun.”

Hassle-free options are also available. Eleven properties are being built at White Point Beach Resort, an established holiday camp on the South Shore. Prices for a two-bed, 1,200 sq ft house start at £252,000, and the resort will rent it out for you when you’re not using it. A similar scheme exists further up the coast at Deep Cove, where three-bedders at the Anchorage start at £152,000. Both are for sale through Tradewinds Realty.

If you prefer to be in a town, £200,000 will buy a large home in good condition in Lunenburg or Mahone Bay. Older property tends to be cheaper – Claussen Walters is selling a two-bed, 75-year-old house in Lunenburg for £95,000.

The most expensive properties in the province are to be found in Chester, a kind of Canadian Salcombe. Founded in 1759, the town has a golf club, a yacht club and a sailing club, and draws well-heeled second-homers for a couple of months every summer. This is where Christopher Ondaatje, the author and businessman, owns not just a house, but a whole island; Jack Nicholson and Demi Moore are also reported to have homes here.

Oceanfront property in the area rarely comes onto the market, and you should count on spending at least £1m. You can find older bargains in Chester itself, however. Land & Sea has a three-bedroom house in need of restoration for £120,000.

Buyers with a more pioneering spirit, who want to find somewhere off the beaten track, should head instead for the northern shore. With wide-open views, swimming-friendly seas (it has among the warmest waters north of the American Carolinas) and some of the cheapest oceanfront property available, it is becoming increasingly popular with British buyers, who prefer its relative solitude to the more crowded South Shore.

Property in this part of the province tends to be smaller than down south, and less impressive – you can buy a good new home with four bedrooms and sea views for £124,000. If you can get your hands on a “fixer-upper”, an old property, you can add value by extending upwards or outwards for relatively little. Tradewinds Realty has recently sold an old farm, set in 95 acres, to an overseas client for £123,000. The buyer is renovating the entire property – rewiring, replumbing, installing new heating and bathrooms, replacing the roof and raising the basement – for £60,000.

Even more remote is Cape Breton, an island connected to the mainland by a stone causeway, which has sweeping landscapes and stunning views. “Cape Breton is the most scenically beautiful part of the province,” says Kilmeny Fane-Saunders, who set up Second Home Nova Scotia last June to cater specifically to British buyers. For less than £75,000, you can buy a couple of acres on the island, then build. A ready-made property on the ocean or the lake will cost £300,000-£350,000.

If you don’t mind not being on the ocean, but still want beautiful surroundings, take a look at the Annapolis and Gaspereau valleys. This is where apples and grapes are grown, and every second property is a farm with a pretty barn, horses, cattle and fruit trees.

Among the rolling hills and lush valleys are picturesque towns: there’s Wolfville, home to Acadia University, Berwick, the apple capital of the province, and Annapolis Royal, designated in 2004 “the world’s most liveable small community” by LivCom, a competition backed by the United Nations Environment Progamme. “A lot of people like the sense of community,” Fane-Saunders says. “It’s beautiful and has grand old buildings.”

Fane-Saunders says you can buy a family home with two acres and four bedrooms, near one of the main towns in the area, for less than £150,000. Lakeland Realty, for example, is selling a three-bedroom property with 34.5 acres and views over the Avon River for £89,000 (00 1 877 499 8700, www.lakelandrealtyns.com).

What else do you need to know? Well, like almost everything in Nova Scotia, the buying process is relatively straightforward. Agents will show you any property on the open market, including private sales, and all fees are paid by the vendor. There are no restrictions on foreigners buying and you can get a mortgage of up to 65% of a property’s value.

If you buy a new property, you will be liable for HST, a Vat-style tax, of 13%: this is sometimes applicable for land purchases. Deed transfer tax (the equivalent of stamp duty) may also be levied and ranges from 0.5%-1.5%.

If you can’t find a property that you like, building is an option: parcels of land can be had for as little as £10,000, and building costs start at £62 per sq ft. Which means you should be able to find somewhere to get away from it all – and enjoy those long summers in style.

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