Are you the adventurous type? When you travel, do you relish the idea of planning your itinerary down to the smallest detail? Or do you prefer to leave those details and the scheduling to someone else? Your dream vacation is possible either way.
My husband and I prefer doing things our way, from the planning stage to the very end of the trip. The journey is as important to us as what we see and do once we get there. That means booking the reservations, paying the deposits on time, and choosing the tours available at our destination. We enjoy making spontaneous stops in unplanned locations for meals or lodging. We look forward to meeting the locals and asking questions about their area.
Others prefer to book a tour with a professional travel/tour company and allow them to plan the itinerary, the means of travel, the meals, the tours and who they may or may not meet along the way.
One of the best vacations Jim and I enjoyed included the Canadian Rockies. It seemed as though a new, breathtaking view awaited around every bend. Our driving trip was over 20 years ago and covered much of the same territory that Arizonans, Larry and Sondra Johnson, recently chose for their Canadian vacation. They booked a bus tour with a well-known travel company known for upscale accommodations and for treating their clients well. It sounded like an excellent tour for seniors looking for comfort and quality as they travel. Following is Larry’s narrative and photographs of their trip. I threw in a few of my own photos taken in August of 1991 to showcase a different season in that area. Larry’s narrative is in bold with my input in regular type.
The trip covered the area from the U.S./Canada border North to Jasper National Park, with a little dip into Montana at the Waterton Peace Park. We spent seven days on the road in a brand new coach, with 40 of our closest new friends, a driver and tour director. The age breakdown of the 48 passengers was 30’s – 1, 50’s – 2, 60’s – 21, 70’s – 22, and 80’s – 2. It was a good group with no whiners, jerks or the “always late” type. Very congenial group.
By contrast, Jim and I and 2 of our children came off an Alaskan cruise, rented a car in Vancouver, and drove East. Our only reservation was for 3 nights at Chateau Lake Louise, and we meandered where we pleased along the way, spending a night in a motel in a small town in an agricultural area before ending up at the lake, our primary destination. While the Johnson’s bus tour included many memorable stops, we especially wanted to stay at the historic railroad hotel. Their tour only stopped there for a short visit. It’s all about choosing what mode of travel works best for you.
Western Canada by Organized Tour
Canada is the second largest country in the world, behind only Russia, but it has fewer people than California. There are 9 Provinces and Territories, and I”m kind of fuzzy on what the difference is. We traveled 1160 miles in 7 days and except for a few miles in Montana, it was all in the Province of Alberta.
Our tour began in the very pretty city of Calgary with its population around 65 million. After a tour of the city, we headed South to Waterton Lakes with its Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park. The first Peace Park of its kind, it was created in 1932. The idea of a Peace Park began with the Rotarians, and there are now over 100 International Peace Parks in the world.
After a lake cruise, we crossed the United States border into Montana with no border check at all. We took photos of Chief Mountain, which was used as a landmark by the pioneers and even earlier native people. Our motel in Waterton was pretty nice and housed us for 2 nights.
This mule deer fawn and its mama roamed freely in the town of Waterton.
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Thursday began with a visit to the Prince of Wales Hotel (built in 1927) before heading out for our day. The highlight was riding the “Red jammers” on the Going-to-the-Sun Highway. It was pretty neat, but I was wishing the other passengers could appreciate the feat that building this highway was. As a Civil Engineer, I was dazzled! I maintain they would never have been able to build it if they had required “Permits” to do it. Those guys were REAL engineers! the highway was named after a nearby mountain.
Friday we packed up and headed North, stopping at the Bar U Ranch to listen to an interesting talk by a cowboy on a horse. We discovered that those metal bars across a road that we call “cattle guards” in the U.S. are referred to as “Texas Gates” in Canada.
We arrived next at Banff National Park, created in 1885 as Canada’s first national park, with Cascade Mountain, which at 9,836 feet, is the highest in Alberta. We rode the gondola to the top of Sulphur Mountain (elevation 7486), where we had a spectacular 360 degree view, then checked into our hotel for another 2 night-stay.
Going It Alone: Canadian Rockies by Car
Jim and I chose to stay overnight in a nice motel a block from the Banff Springs Hotel in the heart of Banff National Park to save money. We toured the old railroad hotel and immersed ourselves in the unique history of what is often called “the Castle in the Rockies.” Now a UNESCO Historic site, the hotel opened to the public in 1888. It was the vision of Cornelius Van Horne, who wanted to establish a series of elite hotels along the line of the Canadian Pacific Railroad. Today, the hotel is part of the luxury Fairmont chain and you may call
My husband and son played a round of golf at the Banff Springs Golf Course, sharing the course with local wildlife, while my daughter and I browsed shops and art galleries in town. As we strolled down the hill from the hotel, we passed homes with moose and nursing calves grazing on the front lawns. Later in the day, we all took the Banff Gondola up Sulphur Mountain. Check out a video of the mountain here.
On Saturday, the tour drove us along some of the lakes in the area before settling in for a raft ride on the Bow River. This was the day the weather transitioned from “Oh my God, it has NEVER been this nice” to “Cloudy, threat of rain, where did the sun go?”
Sunday, we continued our trek North. First, we visited Moraine Lake in the Valley of the Ten Peaks. It was so cold and windy that we were all happy to get back on the coach.
We also stopped at Lake Louise and the Banff Springs Hotel, but it was cold, windy and cloudy. Took a bunch of photos but will probably not keep most.
On the drive North, we made an unscheduled stop at Peyto Lake. This was supposed to be a stop on the return trip, but our tour director thought the weather might deteriorate. Turned out, she was correct as when we drove back by the area a few days later, it was so bad that we would not have stopped. The drive continued on the Icefield Parkway to Jasper and our hotel for the next 2 nights in Jasper National Park. Created in 1907, this is Canada’s largest national park at 4,200 square miles!
Monday, we visited Maligne Lake and Maligne Canyon. The water level was very low and not so spectacular, but the Canyon was awesome! Lots of photos were snapped at the Canyon. The beauty was in the forms, not the colors of the rocks. We heard an interesting story about the Northwest Mounted Police (NWMP) becoming the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), but I forgot most of it.
Tuesday, we headed South for a visit at the Athabasca Glacier. We boarded the all-terrain Ice Explorer to access the Glacier, drove down a short section of unpaved road at 36% grade (fun) and walked around on the glacier in a snow storm for about 10 minutes or so. Then it was on to Calgary and the Hilton Garden Inn,where stayed the night we first arrived in Canada.
Wednesday, the hotel provided shuttle service to the airport where the locals made me take off my shoes and belt and go through a pat down. I managed to keep my mouth shut, much to Sondra’s approval. Canada doesn’t recognize our TSA pre-check. We got off the plane in Phoenix to a temperature of 98 degrees. Ahhh!
Vancouver to Calgary by Car
Our family trip in 1991 was an independent journey. We rented a car in Vancouver and drove East through the Western part of Canada. Scenery was equally beautiful and gave us a slightly different perspective in that we could stop when something interested us. One night was spent in a motel in Kamloops, a city in British Columbia with just under 100,000 residents. Kamloops has a history of the “wild West” with Indian wars, Gold Rush, and the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway. Today, the city is home to art galleries, the Thompson Rivers University and other big city amenities.
Words do not do justice to the beauty of Lake Louise, discovered in the early 1800’s by Thomas Wilson, an employee of the Canadian Pacific Railway who befriended local natives of the Stoney Indians. They took Wilson on horseback to the lake which he dubbed Emerald Lake. Years later, the lake was renamed for Queen Victoria’s daughter, Louise. The first building on the lake was a log structure that housed and fed travelers along the railway line. The current hotel building dates back to 1911 and is now a Fairmont property. In the 1920’s and 1930’s, the Chateau became popular with royalty and movie stars and several movies were based in the area.
We stayed at the Chateau Lake Louise in summer amidst a sea of bright red flowers overlooking the magnificent lake. Having traveled in many parts of the world, I can honestly say that the view from Chateau Lake Louise is the most beautiful, stunning sight that I have ever encountered. The emerald green of the water takes your breath away with its beauty. We,too, ended our trip in Calgary but drove straight to the airport and turned in our rental car before boarding our flight home.
Both a guided tour, leaving the details to the professionals, and an independent journey offer excellent opportunities to view the wonders of the Canadian Rockies. Do you like forging your own path, or would you prefer having the trip planned for you and a guide to bring the sites to life? The choice is yours.
