Eleven days to cover 1900km across British Columbia and Alberta, Canada, taking in all the scenes, food, attractions, wildlife and people. Here’s how we did it:
Day Zero
We flew from Heathrow to Vancouver, despite a 4 hour delay to a 9 and a half hour flight, and checked into our Airbnb city apartment around midnight. We we’re cream crackered when we arrived, so just headed straight to bed for some shut eye, ready for a new day.
Day One
Our apartment overlooked Vancouver city, we headed to Pallet Coffee for breakfast. Walked north along Granville Street, to the harbour wall and saw the sea planes taking off. You could just make our the mountains in the distance. They were giants!
We walked all the way around the marina to the south of Stanley Park and around to English Bay. Despite the fact we were in a city, it felt connected to the natural world and never too far away from greenery. As we walked there we spotted a little pier, where we took a water taxi to Granville Island.
Granville Island was vibrant, full of life, and oozing with creativity. We spent a few hours here wandering around. There was a huge indoor market with a myriad of food to choose from, so many great smells from different cuisines. We chose donuts for the win. There were independent shops with beautifully crafted gifts, decorations and stationery, along with artists selling their work too. Even the graffiti was beautiful.
We hopped on another water taxi back to the mainland and walked along Granville Street to Gastown, where we saw gas clock. I don’t know if it was because we were feeling tired and jet-lagged at this point, but I don’t think this part of town was my cup of tea. We had an evening meal at The old Spaghetti Factory, our table was housed in an old tram. Then retired back to the apartment for a good night’s rest.
Day Two
Breakfast at Pallet Coffee, followed by picking up the car and driving to Prospect Point at Stanley Park. We wandered through Stanley Park, surrounded by giant Douglas firs, Norway spruce and pines. It felt humbling to be surrounded by giants.
We drove north out of Vancouver over the Lions Gate Bridge heading to Capiliano Suspension Bridge. It was pretty busy, but it was amazing, we felt like children exploring the unknown. We ventured along the cliff edge walk too.
We headed over to Squamish and checked into our Airbnb tiny house, then walked around the town. We had tea at Joe Pesto’s wood fired pizzeria. They had a beautiful golden retriever laid in the doorway that greeted guests when they came in. It was really laid back and they made incredible pizza.
Day Three
We walked into town for a tasty coffee and breakfast at 1914 Coffee on 2nd Avenue.
Then headed over to Shannon Falls, a beautiful waterfall. Then we tackled a huge hike up Stawamus Chief, not for the faint hearted. We kept seeing locals coming down and asking them how much further, and they just laughed. It was quite a scramble at the top and you had to pull yourself up with chains. Thankfully it was a clear day so you could see right down to the sea level.
I’m not going to lie, we didn’t realise how intense this hike was going to be. I didn’t pack enough water and it was pretty warm, so it was a lesson learned to never underestimate how much water I need in the future.
Once we got back into Squamish we headed to a brewery our host had recommended, Howe Sound Brewing. We were pretty knackered, so got an early night.
Day Four
It was an early start as we had a lot of ground to cover. We headed north passing Whistler, and stopping off in Pemberton for a coffee at Mount Currie Coffee Co. There was so much snow and it was getting cold outside.
We continued on Highway 99 ,and then along the Trans Canada Highway to Kamloops. The views from the car were awe-inspiring, but we needed to stretch our legs, so stopped to admire Shuswap Lake in Salmon Arm.
We finally made it to Revelstoke, we were staying at Coast Hillcrest Hotel. The view from the hotel restaurant overlooked Mount Begbie, what a giant!
Day Five
We drove to Golden for our first coffee of the day, at Purcell Coffee, then headed for Lake Louise.
It was incredibly busy when we got there, and the tiny carpark was full, so we dropped off the car in the park and ride, and got the bus to the lake. It was beyond my expectations, the water was picture perfect turquoise, even though it was -7 degrees celsius. There were a lot of tourists just at the head of the lake which was quite overwhelming, but once you walked further around, it got quieter and quieter.
We had a wander around, then picked the bus back up, which took us to Moraine Lake. I actually think I liked Moraine even more! We explored the lakeside and woodland surrounding it. Stunning. I could have spent days here.
We checked into our hotel for the night, Mountaineers Lodge and headed to Mountain Restaurant for some evening food. I’ll be honest, it just looked like a greasy spoon restaurant, but my god, the food was epic! With full bellies we retired for the night, after a game of triominoes.
Day Six
We were up super early to start our epic journey along the Icefields Parkway, in fact we went through the gatehouse as they were setting up at 7am, the sun wasn’t even up yet. We’d already ordered our national park pass, so we could just concentrate on the journey.
The mountains were truly breath-taking. We were surrounded by sleeping snow capped giants. We first stopped off at Crowfoot Glacier. Sadly Peto Lake and Bow Summit were closed due to snow, so we continued onto Mistaya Canyon.
We were the only ones there, it feel like we were a million miles away from civilisation. I’m just glad we didn’t meet any bears.
Next top was Columbia Icefield Centre, we went on the Athabasca Glacier tour. The glacier feeds water to three oceans!
They took us onto the glacier in massive Ice Explorer all-terrain vehicles. According to our guide, there were only 24 in the world, and they owned 22 of them. Once we got to the glacier, we were able to get out and have a walk around to experience the 10,000 year old sheet of ice. We were only allowed in a small area though, as it’s a dangerous place to be.
They then took us to to the Glacier Skywalk, a large semi circle shaped bridge towering 280 metres over Sunwapta valley with a glass bottom, so you could see below. It was really cool, but there was too many people around to full enjoy it.
Further up the parkway we stopped off at Sunwapta Falls. It was beautiful and so cold the spray from the waterfall had frozen creating stalagmites and stalactites. We checked into the Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge for the night.
Day Seven
We started the day with a relaxed walk around the resort lake and grounds. We saw elk rutting on the Athabasca river bank. The views over the crystal clear lake with snow capped mountains towering over were magnificent.
We drove into Jasper for some lunch at Jasper Brewing and a look in some of the shops. Then headed out for the day along Maligne Lake road. Our first stop was Maligne Canyon, where we had a short walk. Back on the road, we met a moose. We stopped to let him pass, but he was more interested in licking the tarmac.
The second stop was Medicine Lake. We had a walk around the lake where we found some canadian geese, then spotted what we thought were bear tracks, so we made a hasty retreat.
We finally got to Maligne Lake for 5-6pm ish. Most people must have gone home for the evening, so we had most of the place to ourselves. We sat by the harbour and shared some hot chocolate while taking in the views.
We ventured along the Moose Lake trail. Sadly we didn’t spot any moose, but it was so quiet, almost eerie. You could have heard a pin drop, the water was so still. We spent some time there, but the light was fading. We made our way back to the main lake, where the last of the sunlight, was on the tips of the mountains. It was so peaceful.
We picked up some pizzas from North Face Pizza and some drinks from a liquor store and retired to the lodge for the night.
Day Eight
Back on the road, we headed west out of Jasper along Yellowhead Highway, and then Route 5. We stopped off at Clearwater and had some lunch at Painted Turtle cafe, on the edge of Dutch Lake. Then continued onto Kamloops.
We walked through town to Riverside Park, and eventually ended up at Alchemy Brewing, which happened to be next to our hotel, Thompson Hotel. We might have had a few drinks, tasty food and some more drinks.
Day Nine
Our day started at BC Wildlife Park just outside Kamloops. We saw bears, coyotes, wolves, owls, bison, elk, sheep, goats, eagles, cougars and so much more. All the animals had been rescued and were not able to be released again.
We got back on Highway 5 heading south and stopped off at Chilliwack Maize Maze for some fun. We wandered through the giant maize maze. The staff were so friendly, and the way they’d decorated the place with thousands of pumpkins and vintage agricultural equipment was brilliant. I must have taken a thousand photos!
We carried on toward Vancouver, but the traffic was really heavy so made a pitstop at Surrey Bend Park just ouside the city until the traffic calmed down. We dropped off the car and headed to our hotel Wedgewood Hotel & Spa. There was a huge bath in our room, it was so fancy.
Day Ten
It was a rainy day in Vancouver, so we made our way to the aquarium and explored for hours. We wandered around Vancouver via coffee shops and shops until the evening. We had a lovely evening meal at Earls Kitchen & Bar, then onto a few other bars before home and a bubble bath.
Day Eleven
We spent the morning mooching around Vancouver Art Gallery, then headed to Vancouver Airport to catch our flight back to Blighty.
Final Thoughts
Overall we loved exploring Canada. The scenery is spectacular, the people so inviting and the food delicious. We’d like to go back and explore other parts that we didn’t manage to fit in, like Vancouver Island and Banff. There are so many locations we’d loved to have spent more time at, like Revelstoke and Jasper.
Until the next time Canada, you’ve been amazing.
Thank you for reading, Ashley