Canada

Eric and I toured the southwest of Canada in august/september of 2001. Our trip started in Calgary. In the three weeks it took us to drive our rental car to Vancouver, we visited the Rocky Mountains parks of Banff, Jasper, Yoho, and Kootenay. We drove westward close to the US border, through the Kootenays and the Okanagan. On Vancouver Island we visited the Pacific Rim Nat'l Park and Victoria, and the last few days of our trip were spent in the city of Vancouver.

For specific information on and photographs of our destinations, click on the links in the text above, or on the buttons to the right.
You'll find general info on our trip and on this region of Canada (logistics etc.) on this page:


Tourism in Canada - do I need a travel organization?
Transport - flight, rental car
Timing - when to go, and for how long?
Lodging - where do I stay?

In the map, the blue line shows our route. Click here for high-resolution maps of western British Columbia (Vancouver Island, Okanagan, 711 kb) and the Rocky Mountains area (incl Kootenays, 528 kb). Other maps of local regions are given on the corresponding pages - click on one of the buttons to the right!

Tourism in Canada
Canada is a very easy-going country for tourism. You really don't need to go with a travel organization. All we booked was the flight and the rental car, so we were completely free to come and go as we pleased.

Everything's very well organized, and it's easy to get information, as long as you speak English or French (and you obviously do know English or you wouldn't have gotten this far down in the text). There are Visitors' Centers everywhere that will help you find places to stay, and inform you on the tourist attractions. Plus, most of the guesthouse owners, restaurant waiters, bookstore clerks, whomever, none of them will hesitate to give you advice on anything you ask for.

The Visitors' Centers in the National Parks are excellent. They know all about the hiking trails, bear threats, or where to rent mountain bikes, but they also provide great service in helping you find a place to stay. My advice is to go straight to the Visitors' Center when you arrive at the central town in each of the parks. They know what campgrounds are full, but also whether the guesthouses have room. Once you pick out a guesthouse, they'll call them for you, to let the owners know you're coming. Wow!
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Transport
We flew from Amsterdam to Calgary, and then back from Vancouver. This didn't cost us extra: the plane to Calgary was the one to Vancouver, we just got off early on the way in.
Dropping off charges for the rental car were around $50.
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Timing
The end of august and beginning of september is a good time for visiting this part of Canada. Mosquitoes were no problem, and the weather was mostly dry (although a chance of rain was predicted nearly every day). The temperature was fine for hiking and camping.
Although we visited only a tiny corner of Canada, three weeks was short. That does help put the size of the country in perspective...
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Lodging
Specific information on where we stayed - if relevant - is given on the pages referring to the regions we visited.
Finding a good place to spend the night was never a problem - however, the trick was getting there on time, before it was full.

In the National Parks, we camped as much as possible. These campgrounds were excellent. Very good facilities, spacious, and we loved the fire pits and the endless - free! - supply of firewood (after you buy a $4 fire permit). But if you want a spot at one of these campgrounds, make sure you arrive early, and early means before noon!

The guesthouses in the nat'l parks are good, but prices are close to $100 a night. The ones we stayed at all had cooking facilities.

In the larger cities (Calgary, Vancouver, Victoria), finding a motel was easy.

The Pacific Rim Nat'l Park campgrounds were full, but we camped just outside the park, in a private campground, which was fine.

In the Kootenays we had a little trouble finding a guesthouse that wasn't full, in or around the touristic town of Kaslo, but it was the Labor Day weekend.
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A variety of information on Canada, but mostly in Dutch: canada.pagina.nl

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