Be Excellent To Each Other

I want to go to Canada. On holiday. More specifically, I want to fly to Vancouver, drive via various noteable spots in the Rockies over a couple of weeks to Calgary, then fly home.

Now, I know we've got a Canadian living in the UK, and a UKian living in Canuckia, but from the "Where are you from" thread you're both Ontario chaps, which is rather the wrong side of the country.

I'm looking at doing this in May, because it should hopefully be low season for skiers and hence cheaper - anyone know if it's feasible, whether the roads are driveable that time of year, what places I should definitely make a point of visiting, etc?

Ta.

When I went to an academic conference in Banff in 2003 or so, a colleague flew with her husband to Vancouver a week or so before and drove cross-country to meet us at the conference. They had a great time doing so. So, there's that. I'm not in touch with her any more though so I am afraid I can't ask her for more info.

I knew a guy who somehow managed to cycle across Canada, starting in Vancouver and ending up in Halifax or somewhere. I'm not entirely sure when he travelled, but I think it was in June. I'll try and dig up his details and see what he saw and so on.

Try this, it used to do pertinent info on all parts of the world.
http://Www.worldtravelguide.net
I could ask Carys as there are a few Canucks at her school, two of which are very good friends but I suspect you may be waiting a week or two to get a reply.

For the same money you could go to Vietnam and blow a cow up with and RPG while getting a blow job.

Just saying.

You'll probably* be okay in May, but that part of Canada can be particularly odd in the transition seasons - one day it'll be 21 degrees and the next -5 with a foot of snow. Unless you're extremely unlucky though, it should be drivable.

*Not legally binding. Oh no siree.

Yeah, when we did the Californian parks there was a lot of snow much later than I was expecting. Luckily we'd brought snow chains, though trying to persuade the car hire people in Nevada that we wanted them was a challenge.

How did he cope with the Atlantic?

They built a ramp on the east coast for him - he had the whole of Canada as a run up after all.

I'll go into more detail when I'm not on my phone, but I highly recommend the route my family did back in 1993: starting from Calgary, drive up to Edmonton, west to Jasper, south to Banff, across to Vancouver, ferry to Victoria and (if you have time) across the island to Tofino. I guarantee you'll love it. Take me with you.

My proposed route is similar, but the other way round:

Vancouver-Whistler-Kamloops-Clearwater-Jasper-Banff-Calgary.

It does miss out Vancouver Island, but then there's only a limited number of places you can see in two weeks without being at a different place every night and just spending the whole time driving.

I suppose you could shoot a moose and have a tug from a mountie.

Been to Vancouver and Vancouver Island with work in about 2000, got flown out to tiny uninhabited islands in a float plane, it was zomg awesome.

I've eaten steak canadian. It was nice, but I wouldn't want to drive across it.

So, all done. I've got 30Gb of photos to go through, then I'll get a write-up and a few select pics in here. Summary though - Canada is a damned fine-looking country.