Visiting this area of Canada has always been a dream of mine for a long time. This was the girls first trip abroad, first flight!
Lots of people have asked details about the trip and costs involved so I thought I would do a blog post with all the details. I have spent months joining groups on Facebook and watching reels on Instagram about the area, peoples recommendations for restaurants coffee shops, places to visit. Watching others real time experiences is really helpful to decide on the best time to visit.
For us having neurodivergent children we always need to consider how busy places will be, is it going to be too hot, too cold and visiting in October was for us the perfect time. If you are ever looking at visiting this area i would strongly recommend avoiding peak summer it looks absolutely awful in terms of crowds of people. You just have to watch a couple of reels to see how busy lake Louise gets and don’t even think about going to Johnstone canyon during the day!
We flew out on 23rd October at 10:15 from LHR and arrived at Calgary 9hrs later 12:15 local time which is 7 hours behind us. Flights cost £3046 with Air Canada which was 3 adults and one child fare. You could get it cheaper if you don’t want to book your seats, but having kids with us we needed to make sure we were all together.
Both girls wore their sunflower lanyards through the airport and I can’t tell you how good all the staff working there were, as soon as they see you with a lanyard they direct you through the assistance lanes. You can even board the plane slightly earlier so you can get yourself settled without having to rush (this may vary by airline)
We hired a Ford F150 which cost roughly £250 for 9 days it was absolutely massive but extremely comfortable which is what you want if planning longer road trips into the Icefields parkway.
We stayed in a gorgeous top floor apartment in Timberstone Mountain Lodge which was located in the Spring Creek area of Canmore. Canmore is about a 20 minute drive from Banff (1.5 Hours from Calgary International Airport) and we found it to be perfect for visiting the areas we wanted. The apartment being walking distance to all the shops and restaurants was perfect, the walk took about 15 mins. Everywhere you look you are surrounded by snow covered mountains, it was stunning. There is a considerable amount of construction happening in Spring Creek especially around these apartment blocks as the whole town is being added to but apart from one day it really didn’t bother us.
After arriving in Canmore all rather exhausted we dumped our bags and headed out to the local supermarket. There are 2 in Canmore and both are pretty expensive, food prices are very high! For example a packet of bacon was about $10 dollars about £5.50 cheese was another really expensive item about £6 for a small block. Crisps/ bag of Doritos were about £3-4. I had not intended to do a big shop as I had budgeted for eating out a fair bit. Oddly enough we found this to be cheaper than eating out in the UK at current prices. For example a burger and fries was roughly $29 so about £16, but you have to remember to add on 5% sales tax and tipping (usually around 18% for good service)!
I must admit I found the tipping to be rather strange, I am always happy to tip for good service in a restaurant but you even get asked for a tip when purchasing a bottle of water in a shop, it comes up on the card machine. I’m like sorry I’m not going to tip 18% for passing me a bottle of water from a cabinet.
Day Two Explore Locally
We had enough sleep if somewhat disturbed with the time zones. We tried out Chez Francois for Breakfast and it was delicious, eggs benedict and their fried potatoes that come with everything even the sweet breakfasts. The day was stunning so Tom and I took a walk into Canmore to take a look at what was around. The girls didn’t want to come as they were “tired!” I think this is when I fell in love with the place, clear blue skies and mountains with a dusting of snow! and the smell! you can smell pine trees it was lovely.
We met a little Canadian red squirrel which Aimee decided to name Jeremy, we met Jeremy several times along the same stretch of walk into town happily eating the pine cones, Canadian red squirrels are slightly larger than our red squirrels over here and they don’t have the little ear tufts.
Of course once Tom and I had walked the length of Canmore stopped off to try some of the Grizzly Paw beers (local brewery with multiple locations) and walked back to the apartment, told the girls how lovely it was they then decided they wanted to explore as well!
So back out we went Robin armed with her first pay packet from her new job, so some shopping it was and boy did she shop!
https://thegrizzlypaw.com/
https://albertasownmarket.com/
Day 3 Canmore Explore
Another beautiful day, we decided to take a walk along the Bow river to see the famous Canmore Engine bridge. It was built in 1891 for coal transportation but more recently was used as a filming location for “The last of us”.
As you walk along the river you pass some absolutely gorgeous river front houses or mansions! Yes, I did look in the real estate agent window while we were there and you are looking at minimum of $1.6 million for a view!
Of course I have to mention the Big Head sculpture by Al Henderson inspired by Canmore’s name, which was taken from a small Scottish town and means “great head” or “chief” in the Gaelic language. Pretty random but also pretty cool!
That evening we ate out at the Grizzly Paw Tank310 restaurant, excellent beers (huge choice) and massive pizzas!
Day 4 Sunday Banff
We knew the weather was going to be a bit unpredictable (every forecast service seems to disagree with each other!) so we hadn’t made any plans and decided to see what Banff was like. Given what I had been reading of how busy it was in the summer I wasn’t hopeful that we would get a parking space (Banff train station 500 free parking spaces easy walk to town from there).
To visit Banff you enter the National Park itself and therefore you need to purchase a National Parks Pass, you can pay daily or get a discovery pass that covers all National Parks in Canada and is valid for one year. The cost is $151 (£82) for a Family group visiting in one car. https://parks.canada.ca/pn-np/ab/banff/visit/passer-passes
We arrived around 11am to a mostly empty car park so lots of space, girls were hungry and wanted to try Canadian Popeyes so fried chicken and chips it was (It was actually pretty tasty but not something I would normally eat!). Side note: Tom said the 3 piece chicken spicy was excellent.
Banff is a bigger version of Canmore, lots of great shops and so many places to eat, there is also a fire pit with chairs around to warm up! Its got a great feel to the places I cant really describe it we just loved Banff, and Cascade Mountain is of course the photo you need to get. We were lucky enough to get a little snow storm while walking the streets it certainly got me excited for Christmas. Speaking of which there is a shop called “The Spirit of Christmas” and it really was! Yes i bought something for the tree!
Day 5 Monday Banff Gondola & Northern Lights Alpine Kitchen
I’m not gonna lie, the idea of getting in the glass cabin and going up a mountain suspended by wires was all kinds of daunting but I was trying to keep my freaking out inside so the girls thought it would be fine! We arrived at the car park and it took some convincing to get Aimee out of the car!
It is expensive at $234 (£127) for 3 adults children under 15 are free with a paying adult. On a clear day 100% worth the terror of the ride! (side note from Tom: It was the smoothest gondola ride) and there we arrived at 7483ft.
There is a coffee shop and several restaurants at the top. Most famously Sky Bistro which is more upmarket dining, this wouldn’t work for the girls so we chose the Northern Lights restaurant which is buffet all you can eat style with a big selection of dishes from pizza to brisket & gravy, salad bar and indulgent desserts. at $45 an adult and $22 a child (plus drinks tax & tip) I thought it was pretty reasonable (given the view is priceless). the food was fresh and filled us all up for the rest of the day. The 2 mimosas went down well too, I needed the dutch courage to get me back down (side note from Tom: it was still smooth)
Day 6 Lakes!
This day was the day I was looking forward to the most and it didn’t disappoint, to get the best out of the lakes that are fed by glacial water you need a clear day and sun high in the sky, visit midday onwards to get the gorgeous turquoise colour on the water. if you saw my Instagram post I explained why the lakes are the colour they are. I’ll mention it again because its pretty cool.
Glacial-fed lakes are blue because the glaciers grind rock into a fine powder called glacial flour. This “flour” remains suspended in the meltwater, and when sunlight hits it, the particles scatter the blue and green wavelengths of light, making the water appear turquoise or vibrant blue.
There are many many lakes around the Canadian Rockies but we only chose 2 to visit as there’s only so many lakes you can take a teenager to before getting bored let alone teenagers who are autistic and where one has chronic fatigue so we paced our time and chose Lake Louise & Emerald Lake.
I was especially looking forward to Emerald lake because I have been looking at the lodge hotel as a screensaver on our TV for years and I said to myself I really want to see that in real life one day!
We took the Trans Canada Highway all the way to lake Louise (50 mins from Canmore) and even the drive there was spectacular you are getting higher in to the mountains and you start to see snow on the sides of the road, Your ears popping as you get higher and higher. I also love the fact they have regular animal crossing points along the highway.
Arriving at lake Louise there was plenty of parking and at this time of year after Canadian thanksgiving parking is free. You can also take the shuttle that runs regularly. It was freezing and snowy, absolutely perfect. After spending an hour at Lake Louise we moved onto Emerald lake. (32mins from Lake Louise)
The rest of the family indulged my wanting to go into the lodge itself for a drink and snack in the Kicking Horse Lounge. I just wanted to sit and have a glass of wine looking at that lake! Bucket list item ticked off! If you haven’t had a look at Emerald lake lodge check out their Instagram, I would love to stay over night in the snow it just looks dreamy! (Tom here again: the charcuterie board and local beers were superb)
Day 7 Recovery Day
By this point the girls needed a day to chill so we spent a lot of time at the apartment relaxing. Tom and I went to dinner in the evening at The Iron Goat pub, The views from this restaurant are fantastic and no exaggeration their meatloaf (Bison, Elk and Beef) with mash potatoes is pure comfort on a plate. Side note from Tom: the poutine was excellent.
One thing to note about eating out in Canada, it is very relaxed people are sipping cocktails in their hiking hear and woolly hats. Jeans and a nice top is about as dressy as they get day to day, obviously you could dress up if you wanted but i would feel pretty out of place unless it was a special occasion! You cant really be wearing heels on ice!
https://www.irongoat.ca/
Day 8 Sunrise, Johnstone Canyon & Banff Shopping
This was a busy day. We wanted to see if we could spot some elk as we had not seen one since we visited Banff on Sunday. Randomly spotting one in the train station car park!
Thinking they would be around at sunrise, I woke the girls early. You can imagine how that went down but we all managed to get out the door just as the sun was rising.
It was FREEZING but sooo beautiful it was well worth teenage wrath. No elk (or any other animals) though which was annoying.
We went back and had some breakfast before getting in the car and traveling up the 1A Bow Valley Trail to Johnstone Canyon. Beautiful scenic route comapred to the the main highway, we did see lots of red squirrels that decided that as we were passing that was the time to run across the road, it felt a bit like dodge the squirrel at one point.
Johnstone Canyon is not somewhere I would recommend visiting at the height of summer, I have seen videos of queues of people waiting to take photos of the waterfall so basically you just dont move, and that to me is not at all fun or worth your time. There are higher waterfalls on the longer trail and so this may be a better option if busy.
We decided to chance it given that it was October and it was actually very quiet (but even still a little crowded at the falls). The lower falls walk is about an hour round trip, Robin decided to save her energy for shopping in Banff so Aimee came with us. The larger falls are another hour or so walk onwards.
After our walk we stopped at Banff for another look around and as we are leaving the car park what does Aimee spot! A whole heard of Elk coming out of the woods! Honestly of all the driving around back roads and we spot them outside the town! (Then the the police turned up since they were in the middle of the road)
Day 9 And that’s pretty much a wrap
We spent the last full day locally, had lunch at the Grizzly Paw Pub before packing and trying to squeeze everything back into our suitcases.
Our flight back to LHR was at 7.25pm we decided to the scenic route back to Calgary as Tom wanted to go via Cochrane to get some leather boots that were much cheaper in Canada. Mark’s store had a huge choice of outdoor wear.
We did also discover that there was a Walmart there which is a much cheaper food shopping option so if we ever go back again we would food shop there and take it back to Canmore.
All in all this trip have been out of this world amazing. We are all missing the mountain views, the cool temperatures and snowflakes occasionally falling from the sky.
Canada has made a big impact on my heart and I’m already costing another trip! But its going to take some saving!
comment back on my social media post and let me know if this was helpful, i cant allow comments on the blog as you get so much spam!
L x
Canada Cost Breakdown
Flights £3046 Air Canada
Air BnB £2852 Timberstone mountain lodge, spring creek Canmore
Car hire 9 days £250 ford truck
Extra fuel £50 (regular gas was around $1.55/litre)
National parks pass £86
Spending money £2k covered eating out, food shopping excursions and gifts.
Total £8284