Alberta Travelers Recommend

Are you looking for spectacular mountains, pristine snow, misty canyons or shopping til you drop into some natural hot springs? Banff is the place for you. Before throwing yourself into the wilds of nature, get to know Banff township – then you’ll have the perfect recovery plans after the next few days out adventuring. Banff has history, culture and plenty of places to shop and eat. For starters, those mountains create the most amazing backdrop while your stroll or dine. Take a city sightseeing tour to get oriented, then ride the gondolas – the Banff Gondola takes you to the top of Sulphur Mountain for incredible views, and the Lake Louise Gondola is a slightly longer ride with amazing panoramas. Meet the locals: grizzly bears. But best do it on a guided tour – these are wild and awesome animals. Or take an evening tour and see animals in the wild.

Calgary hosted the 15th Winter Olympics in 1988, a first for Canada. At Canada Olympic Park you can see the 70m and 90m ski jumps - from the top you realize how crazy those guys are - and the concrete bobsled and luge runs. The Olympic Hall of Fame has three floors of exhibits honouring athletic achievements. Calgary Zoo not only has close to a thousand kinds of animals, but a dinosaur park (yes, they’re replicas). Fish Creek Provincial Park offers the chance to get away from it all on hiking trails in an enormous mid-city wilderness, or you can rest easy in the tranquillity of Inglewood Bird Sanctuary. Calgary is shaking off its redneck ‘Cowtown’ image and showing off how much it has to offer. Why not get up in the air to get a perspective on this up-and-coming metropolis? Take a trip up to the top of Calgary Tower to check out the mountains on the skyline, get high on adrenalin on the rides at Calaway Park or take in the view from a restaurant.