Destination: Banff National Park, Canada

The breathtaking beauty of the Canadian Rockies and the iconic town of Banff are an absolute must-see destination for every RVer. Our five-day visit barely scratched the surface of what this stunning region has to offer, and we’re already planning our return.

Banff is a place that words alone can’t capture—majestic mountains, cascading waterfalls, awe-inspiring glaciers, and soothing hot springs. Whether you’ve seen it in YouTube videos or stumbled upon its beauty through a Google search, nothing compares to experiencing it firsthand. Don’t make the mistake of waiting decades to visit, like I did. This national park offers a lifetime of memories.

If you’re planning a trip to Banff, preparation is key. In this episode, we’ll share our essential tips for making the most of your adventure in this popular destination. With the right planning, you’ll be free to explore the wonders of Banff—from chasing waterfalls to soaking in hot springs and so much more.

Join us as we recount our unforgettable trip and offer practical advice to help you plan your own journey to the Canadian Rockies. Trust us, this is one RV destination you won’t want to miss.

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Question of the Month

Transcript

TEASER:

One of the most majestic destinations in North America is Banff, Canada. 

SCRIPT:

Back in the 90s, my grandparents Bobbie and Papa, had visited Banff and the stories that they shared about how beautiful it was and it has stuck with me ever since. You see, my grandparents had lived all over the world from Peru, Columbia, Egypt, England to name a few. Plus, they were very seasoned travelers and they’ve seen so much of this planet. Hearing them light up as they spoke about Banff, is the reason that the Canadian Rockies garnered a spot on my bucket list. 

This past summer, our family with our travel trailer in tow, made the 12-hour drive to Banff. We rolled into camp at night, got everything set up and then we woke up to stunning views of jagged snow capped peaks right from our campsite. Our first full day was filled with figuring out the local transit system, Roam. We headed into the town of Banff to chase down poutine, a pint and to get a lay of the land as Banff was the springboard to many of our adventures. 

According to Wikipedia:

Banff was first settled in the 1880s after the transcontinental railway was built through the Bow Valley. In 1883, three Canadian Pacific Railway workers stumbled upon a series of natural hot springs on the side of Sulphur Mountain. Then in 1885, Canada established a federal reserve around the Cave and Basin hot springs and began promoting the area as an international resort and spa as a way to support the new railway. In 1887, the reserve area was increased and named "Rocky Mountain Park". This was the beginning of Canada's National Park system. The area was named Banff in 1884 by George Stephen, president of the Canadian Pacific Railway, recalling his birthplace near Banff, Scotland. The town of Banff was the first municipality to incorporate within a Canadian national park

When you visit Banff, one of the most important places to visit is the Banff Visitor Center in downtown Banff. This is a great resource, where you can chat with a park ranger to get the lay of the land, find hikes, while also chatting with them about the various transit options that are available as they will best help you figure out how it works and what may work best for you. Hang tight we will dive into transit later in this episode. 

The town of Banff reminds me of any mountain town, the architecture isn’t gimmicky like you’d see in Leavenworth, Washington, but it definitely has that European Alps vibe. There are plenty of souvenir shops slinging just about the same t-shirts and hoodies and the restaurants range from pubs, to something fancy. For the life of me I’m trying to remember the name of the restaurant that we went to in town, but what I can tell you is that it was a sports bar, with hockey centric memorabilia. It was kid friendly, above street level with a deck that had great views. We had some great Canadian beers and ciders with our lunch and of course I chased down poutine. I had to get my fix for sure. This was about all the time we actually spent in the town of Banff one day. It was our first day as we wanted to get our bearings for the rest of our trip. I will add that the IGA grocery store for provisioning in town was a good stop. 

While this trip was a bucket list destination for us, we had so many wonderful highlights that I find it hard to even distill down all that we saw and did. One of our excursions was to the Lake Louise Ski Resort and Summer gondola. The Lake Lousie Ski resort is one of the key jumping off points to catch shuttles to Lake Louise and Morraine Lake. We rode the gondola up the mountain and had a wonderful farm to table lunch at the Whitehorn bistro which is a short 10 min walk from the top of the gondola. Our meal was great and the views were spectacular. As we wrapped up our meal our server came over to us and shared that an incoming lightning storm was 15 minutes out and the gondola had ceased operation until the storm passed and then they ushered us inside to wait out the storm. We hunkered down with other visitors and guests, it was about a 30-45 minute wait and we did almost miss our shuttle to Lake Louise, but ultimately the storm passed, and we rode the gondola down. We were able to make our shuttle with Parks Canada to Lake Louise. 

Lake Louise is just as stunning in person than in all the photos you’ve ever seen on the internet. It will take your breath away with the jagged peaks and the Caribbean turquoise blue water. Visiting the lake is just as touristy as seeing Old Faithful blow in Yellowstone National Park, but just like Old Faithful, it is totally worth seeing for yourself. 

We did the touristy thing and snapped family photos of us and the edge of the lake, there is a path that you can talk along the waterfront and you can escape a bit away from the crowds while also changing your perspective of this beautiful lake. 

After we explored Lake Louise we headed over to the Banff Hot Springs. This is unlike the hot springs that you find in the Olympic National Park, this hot spring really is a mineral pool that you can easily soak in. It doesn’t smell like sulfur and it can be pretty busy with people. Don’t be discouraged and this should be a place that you visit, the views from the pool are pretty and it is basically an oversized hot tub without the chlorine. We had a great time sitting and standing in the pool talking about our day, our future plans and we just enjoyed taking in the time to be together. 

The following day, we had a private shuttle booked with Morraine Lake Bus Company. It was a 9 am shuttle and with the drive from where we camped to the Lake Louise Ski Resort we just missed our 9 am shuttle. We spoke with a Morraine Lake Bus Company employee who told us that the next availability they had for us was noon. We were disappointed as this was to be the day that we did one of the famous Lake Louise Tea House hikes, but getting to the trailhead by noon was going to throw a kink into our hiking plans. We opted to stay put at the ski resort and then head back over to the Morraine Lake Bus company pick up location. We arrived 20 minutes early and then were told that there was no room on the noon shuttle and that since we missed our 9 am shuttle they did not have to guarantee us a spot and that they would not refund. It was about $200 for our family of four to take this 5 min shuttle across the way. We then drove to their office and spoke with someone there. After some back and fourth they said they’d get us on a 3 pm shuttle but that we would have to be on the 5 or 5:30pm shuttle coming back.  All dashes of hope left as we knew then that we would not be able to complete the tea house hike, so we walked away from their shuttle and our money. Disappointed to say the least and the fact that they were pretty unwilling to even uphold what their employee initially told us, has left us with a pretty bad taste in our mouth for the Morraine Lake Bus Company. If you go, I would recommend that you use either Parks Canada shuttles or the Roam Transit which is the public transportation option. 

While we were disappointed with the Morraine Lake Bus Company, one lesson learned is to stay flexible and learn to be more like water. Because we missed out on the tea house hike, we ended up getting a piece of advice from a local, who shared with us that the hike out to Takakkaw Falls is worth it and they were right. 

Takakkaw Falls initially follows a paved path out to a footbridge, once you cross the footbridge the path is a graded gravel trail out to the base of the waterfall. The sounds of rushing water and the change in temperature lets you know that you are getting close. This is an exceptional waterfall that is created from a glacier high above and the moving water from underneath the glacier as it reaches the edge of the mountain top. We enjoyed the hike out to the waterfall and our spirits returned and it was a great way to end a disappointing beginning to the day. We were grateful that we were able to see this waterfall even though it was never on our radar or in any of our plans for hiking. 

Our original plans included us moving campgrounds on the back half of our trip to go to the town of Jasper as the town is the springboard to the north end of the Banff National Park. Unfortunately the two weeks leading up to our trip, the community of Jasper was ravaged by a devastating wildfire that last I heard had destroyed over 30% of the town. This wildfire forced us to pivot our plans as the Icefield Parkway was closed going north from the Athabasca Glacier. RVers are a resourceful community and we lucked out in finding two campsites for us and the other family traveling with us in the mountain town of Revelstoke, BC. Which I will talk about in a separate special Destination episode in the near future. What we were able to do is make the three hour drive, one way, from our campground in Banff to the Athabasca Glacier. What was going to be a half day excursion for us, turned into a full day. We are so glad that we didn’t walk away from these plans. 

The drive along the Icefield Parkway has now become my favorite stretch of road in North America. For the last 20 years my number one stretch of road has been highway 395 from Death Valley National park up to Lake Tahoe along the eastern spine of the Sierra Mountains. The icefield parkway is amazing. Everywhere you look the views are breathtaking and the road is so much fun to drive. 

According to Wikipedia:

The Athabasca Glacier is one of the six principal 'toes' of the Columbia Icefield, located in the Canadian Rockies. The glacier currently loses depth at a rate of about 5 meters (16 ft) per year and has receded more than 1.5 km (0.93 mi) and lost over half of its volume in the past 125 years. 

You can look at the geology and the morraines to see just how massive the Athabasca Glacier was over a century ago. It is a pretty wild site to see and to just comprehend how large this glacier field once was. 

We drove the Icefield Parkway to go to Athabasca Glacier. In our preparation planning we had made reservations to head out onto the glacier via the Columbia Icefield Glacier Tour company operated by Pursuit. This was about a $200 experience for our family of four and our tour included a ride out onto the glacier via the overland buses that they have. There are something like only 20 of them in the world, and 18 are here for exploring the Athabasca Glacier and the other two are down in Antartica. Be sure to bring an empty water bottle so you can taste that sweet fresh glacier water. I promise you won’t get sick. After our tour ended they bussed us up to the Skywalk which is a glass floor sky bridge that you can walk out on and get some great views of the Columbia Icefields. Again, this might be a touristy thing to do and some may not like to do these types of adventures, but I will tell you that for us and our family it was a super cool experience and we were able to get right up and close. 

Overall we had about four days to explore the greater Banff area. The drive from where we live is about nine hours by car, but in an RV it took us closer to twelve. We left after work on a Friday and crossed the border around 7:30 in the evening. The border crossing was pretty straight forward. As I approached the border agent, I rolled down my window and the driver's rear window, turned on the interior lights and had our passports ready to hand to the border agent. They asked the standard crossing questions and then we were through. Our destination that first night was with a Harvest Host in Merritt, British Columbia. The next day we got a little later than planned to start our day and so we ultimately didn’t end up arriving at our campsite in Banff until 10:30pm. We stayed at the Tunnel Mountain trailer Court and we had full hook ups. Most of the sites here are pull throughs and come Sunday morning, I poured myself a cup of coffee and walked the campground for a bit. Taking in the surrounding beauty and listening to the morning birds sing their songs. Tunnel Mountain Trailer Court is just outside of downtown Banff and is one of the nicest national park operated campgrounds I have ever stayed at. This is the campground to stay at when you find yourself in Banff, but that also means that you need to be ready for the reservation game. The Canadian park system operates a little bit differently than our state parks do. They are not on a rolling calendar, the entire country opens up around the three weeks of January for reservations. That means I was on my computer at 7 in the morning, and I was lucky as I was fifteen hundred in a queue and our friends we were camping with were like 46 thousand. It took them over 45 minutes to just get past the queue and be able to book their campsite. This means that we were not able to buddy camp and have side by side sites, but we did get lucky and were a very short walk between our two campsites.  The only thing I can think of, is that whoever has the shorter wait in the que should maybe book both the sites, but I didn’t do any research to know if you can book two sites under two different names, so you may want to investigate this a bit more as this is just an after the fact thought i’ve had. 

The Canadian Rockies and the town of Banff honestly should be on everyone’s lists of places to see and RV to in North America. We barely scratched the surface on our short visit and the five days that we were there went pretty quickly. We will be going back and I want to go back sooner than later. I cannot even begin to express just how amazing, stunning, majestic, beautiful, insert other adjectives here to describe it to you. Even if you do a google search or watch any of the videos on Youtube, you will see just why you need to see it for yourself. Don’t wait the almost thirty years it took me to get there just based on what my grandparents shared with me back when I was in my late teens/early 20s. A trip like this will require a fair amount of pre-trip planning, not that you can’t wing it, but i’d recommend that you at least secure your campground and shuttle passes and they really are the key to exploration of this very busy national park. 

You must go chase waterfalls, glaciers, hot springs and memories in Banff. 

CLOSING

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In next week’s Pit Stop, I’m going to share some tips and tricks that I use when hitting the road for a multi-day trip. How to save some time and keep cash in your pocket all the while enjoying your week long or greater RV trip.