A fun way to explore national parks by car — Texas to Canada (Part 1)
Banff National Park
Let’s start with one of the most beautiful place we visited during our trip–Banff National Park — one of four national parks during our two week-long driving trip in summers of 2017. So, here is the fun part — we drove 1958 miles (one way) from Dallas to Banff. No, we are not crazy but yes, we love our road trips!! This was our longest, cross-country drive so far in our books of road travel. Before reaching Canada, we spent a day at Great Sand Dunes national park, camped at Glacier national park for three days and then headed to explore Banff as per our itinerary. I would love to talk of other national parks too but some other day. Today let’s explore Banff but before we do that let me talk about one hidden gem which we just happened to pass by while en-route to our final destination. Its called “Kootenay national park”.
Kootenay National Park (a small detour we took in our route - last minute changes 😉)-
We entered Canada from British Columbia province passing through Kootenay national park which is located on the southern end of the park, took route via the Radium Hot Springs entrance and worked our way to the north towards Banff. This route was not on our list and we just happened to take it due to our car having some issues. It surely deserves some attention before we talk about Banff.
Kootenay is a long, narrow park — 58 miles long and only about 5 miles wide on either side of the highway. It may to not be the biggest national park in the Canadian Rockies, but its landscape is surprisingly diverse. We enjoyed every single minute of our drive enjoying the glacier-capped peaks, semi-arid grasslands and stunning Kootenay River. The views were so surreal and honestly, we didn’t even know about this national park until we reached there. I would say that this was one of the best decisions we took. Though we didn’t spend more than few hours of our day, we surely enjoyed our drive through there.
This above map will give you some context in terms of locations of both parks. We are glad that we took this route. Hope you enjoyed the detour as much as we did :)
Next we will explore Banff and some beautiful places which one can’t miss to visit when in Alberta, Canada. Here is a sneak peek below before diving into it deeply.
Banff national park-
A rich history, jaw-dropping natural scenery, and activities for all abilities make Banff the ideal home base for exploring Canada’s oldest national park. It is spread over 6,641 sq. km along the magnificent Canadian Rockies, in Alberta, a prairie province of Canada. It has been a heaven for adventurous travelers for more than 125 years. The earliest visitors came via the Canadian Pacific Railway to explore the newly minted Banff National Park, the first national park in Canada and third in the world. These days, the area is a reasonable 90-minute drive along the Trans-Canada Highway from Calgary’s International Airport.
Banff National Park with its snow-capped mountains, ethereally colored glacial lakes and abundant wildlife is a must visit place, recommended by all travel gurus. Lured by the rugged natural beauty of the Canadian Rocky Mountains, everyone is attracted to this park throughout the year. This park has lots to offer and we shall talk about it more in the next posts….
“In every walk of nature one receives far more than he seeks” — John Muir.
