Canada vacation 2022

Dear readers, we just came back from a refreshing family vacation. We visited 2 countries: Canada & Italy, and in this travel post I will be writing part 1 of our vacation details about the Canada trip to Calgary city. In post two, I will cover our Italy trip to Rome, Florence, Pisa and Venice. My 3rd and final travel post for this summer will be about visiting the Vatican, Cinque Terre, Milan and Lake Como in Italy.

Background

We love to travel as a family and consider ourselves travel enthusiasts. We generally take 2 family vacations yearly- one in summer and one in winter, and sometimes during spring or Thanksgiving break in addition. Fortunately working in the education sector, I get time off during summer as well as a short two weeks break in December. Last year we had visited Pittsburgh and New York City in the summer and San Francisco and Yosemite National Park, California in the winter. Read my posts about each one here, if interested- post pandemic visit to Pittsburgh, explore New York City, winter trip to California and Yosemite trip.

Introduction

Canada is world’s second largest country by area but around 70% of Canadians live in the South due to severe cold weather in the northern parts. As opposed to 50 states in the US, Canada has provinces and territories. The 10 provinces in Canada are Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Prince Edward Island, Quebec, and Saskatchewan. The three territories are Northwest Territories, Nunavut, and Yukon.

Both of my sisters and their families live in Calgary which falls under Alberta province. Calgary is beautiful and picturesque any time of the year. I had the opportunity to visit in the summer of 2013 and then the winter of 2015. Winter can be very harsh but the frozen lakes and snow all around did make our winter trip worthwhile too. Today’s post is about our recent visit to Calgary in the summers 2022, so read on.

Places to visit in Calgary

If you are visiting beautiful Calgary, Lake Louise, Lake Moraine, Jasper National Park and Banff National Park are must places to visit. I have visited three National Parks in Calgary-Jasper National Park, Banff National Park and Waterton Lakes National Park and each of them has their own charms and natural beauty of mountains, lakes and wildlife. Banff is Canada’s first national park and the world’s third. It is about 150 km from Calgary, so less than 2 hours away. In addition, you can take a trip to Vancouver which is a picturesque drive about 12 hours away at 971 km from Calgary. Waterton and Edmonton are two other nearby places you would enjoy. Waterton has a lake that may be the only one there which does not freeze in winter, unlike other lakes. For more information about Waterton Lakes National Park, visit their official website here. Edmonton is the capital of Alberta and has an indoor water amusement park which we had enjoyed in the middle of winter in 2015!

Our experience

We flew from Houston to Calgary on June 23rd. The flight was at 6:30 pm and we reached at 10:06 pm the local time there. My younger sister, brother in law and their son had come to the airport to pick us up. It was wonderful to meet them after 3 years. The last time we had seen them was when they visited us in Houston in July 2019. We were carrying 2 big suitcases, 1 small suitcase and 3 backpacks as carry-on bags. I believe we were traveling light as we were also going to Italy after Canada, but I am sure some people may not agree with us:) I am amazed at how some people just carry a suitcase each worth of clothes/utilities when going on vacations! That is never us.

We reached their home, ate dinner, talked some and went to sleep around 1 am. Their older one was already asleep as he had school the next one and the younger one ended up skipping going to school due to the late night. The next day 24th was our 20th wedding anniversary. We had planned it like this so I could celebrate the anniversary with family – both my sisters are in Calgary, and then my older one’s birthday after 5 days in Europe. We went to my older sister’s home for lunch. In the evening we cut a cake, ordered an elaborate takeout Indian dinner and overall I was full of gratitude to be able to be with family!

The next day was Saturday, and we planned to go to Jasper visiting Lake Louise and Lake Moraine on the way. For the people who are local and who have traveled there, it is a known fact that to get parking in either of the 2 places you have to be there early in the day as else all parking gets full and they detour you. Since we were three families with six adults and 5 kids ranging in age from 7 to 19 years, we decided to not have an early start and as expected could not get parking when we reached after noon. But wait, we got lucky the next day! On our return from Jasper on Sunday evening, we were able to park, explore and take breathtaking views of both Lake Louise and Lake Moraine.

The drive from Calgary to Jasper and Banff is spectacular in so many ways. With mountains and lakes and greenery all around, you will end up almost always to get glimpses of wild life. During our drive, we saw rams, mountain goats and bears! We stopped at around 3 pm for a camping style lunch and it was so fun! The food was leftovers from last night but the experience of the picnic of eating in the outdoors with family was amazing. On the way we also stopped at three water falls and they were absolutely stunning. We saw the rainbows in the falling waterfalls and it was a nice climbing and exploring experience. We reached Jasper late at night as expected with the multiple stops in between for explorations and picture taking. We had the takeout dinner in the hotel room and went to sleep after kids enjoyed some splash time in the hotel pool.

The next day Sunday, we started back little before 11 am as we wanted to stop at the lakes on our way back to Calgary. We did get lucky as we were able to find parking at both Lake Louise and Lake Moraine! Lake Moraine is only open for couple months in a year and so it is always crowded when is open from June to August generally. Moraine Lake is glacier-fed and has a brilliant blue-green color due to the result of light refracting off the rock. It is best admired from the top but you can also walk and hike around the lake to absorb all the beauty and nature. You can read more information about Lake Moraine here.

According to the official site banfflakelouise.com, Lake Louise is world famous for its turquoise lakes, the Victoria Glacier, soaring mountain backdrop, palatial hotel, and incredible hiking and skiing. In the winter the lake is completely frozen but open to public. The Lake Louise Ice Magic Festival is amazing which we were able to attend in December 2015. The Ice Sculptures in Lake Louise and the skating rink on the frozen lake are both admired and attended by tons of tourists. Just remember to bring lots of warm clothes for the evening! You can find more information about things to do in Lake Louise here. The Icefields Parkway is another activity you should definitely do when there. It is rated as one of the top drives in the world and is a 232 km stretch of double-lane highway winding along the Continental Divide through soaring rocky mountain peaks, icefields and vast sweeping valleys. For more information click here.

Contrast pictures from winter trip:

Wrap Up

To summarize we had an amazing vacation visiting family and exploring Calgary. I would highly recommend visiting Banff and Jasper National park to explore both Lake Louise and Lake Moraine. Lake Louise is open all year around but Lake Moraine is only open during the summer months from approximately June to August. You can also explore the Stampede in July, but in today’s post I wrote only about the outdoors and scenic beauties you can explore in Calgary.

Dear readers, we would love to hear from you. Have you visited Calgary or any other places in Canada? Which would be your favorite from my post today? Share your favorite vacation spot or vacation memory.

Related posts:

Our road trip experiences

Disney World trip

Our first Europe trip