Vancouver & The Canadian Rockies: An Epic 10 Day Road Trip Itinerary

It’s decided: the age-old question of if you could only travel to one country for the rest of your life, where would it be? Mine is Canada.

I’ve spent a lot of time in Canada over the years; almost ten months of my life, in fact. In that time, I’ve mostly only seen BC and Alberta, but there’s a good reason for that as I have family there. That means I always have an excuse to visit, as if the mindblowing scenery and the abundant wildlife and the epic hiking and the laidback city life and the scenic road trips and the this-doesn’t-quite-look-real turquoise lakes and the phenomenally friendly people weren’t enough.

I wasn’t planning a big trip any time soon, if I’m honest. But with some free time this year, I decided it would be nice to see my family while we can… still do things together – after all, they aren’t getting any younger. There are some imminent changes of circumstances in their lives and this would be my last chance to visit them where they currently live.

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We decided to make it into a proper holiday. My first couple of visits to Canada always revolved around family, including a road trip up to Jasper which we joined my aunt & uncle on ten years ago. On our last visit, after my six-month stint in Vancouver, we had our own transport – but most of our plans were south of the border with a timeframe before winter conditions hit, so the Canadian portion was brief. A scouting mission, if you like.

This time, we wanted to bring that scouting mission to fruition, with longer stops and a few additional ones as well. I plotted out our route, virtually the same as our previous trip combined with the one before that, with extra nights between places so that we could explore along the route with a little more leisure than last time.

Here’s the rough itinerary:

Day 1 – Vancouver to Whistler
Day 2 – Whistler to Revelstoke
Day 3 – Revelstoke to Banff
Day 4 – 5 – Banff
Day 6 – Banff to Jasper
Day 7 – Mount Robson & Jasper
Day 8 – Jasper to Lake Louise
Day 9 – Moraine Lake
Days 10 – 16 – time spent with family & back to Vancouver

Had we not been planning to see family in eastern and southern BC, we would have flown home from Calgary, making this the perfect 10 day itinerary (and a full two weeks if you include time spent in Vancouver and Calgary themselves).

As you probably won’t be following entirely in our footsteps, I won’t include any of the last portion of our trip!

Anyway, I need to stop calling it “our”. Unfortunately, Ash didn’t get his eTA in time – and still hasn’t got it now. May this serve as a reminder to apply PLENTY of time in advance (which we thought we did) in case you have to provide any extra documents. We suspect it may be because of the World Cup, but the Canadian government is notorious for taking forever (as in, sometimes over a year) processing these applications once it goes to manual review. Which is strange anyway because he hasn’t had to do that before!

We made the difficult decision for me to power on without him rather than postponing – like I say, family circumstances are looking like they could change any time, and the reason for the trip was ultimately to see my aunt & uncle. Unfortunately, it did mean I had to drive a whopping 3,000km on my own – 3,061km, to be exact. So I’ll tell you what – if this is something you’d like to do and you’re worrying about not having anyone to go with, JUST DO IT! Canada is a great country to drive in, and if I can do it, you can too. (Just maybe don’t do too many 6+ hour drives…)

After three(ish) days in Vancouver catching up with friends and re-visiting all of my favourite places (basically the first half of this list), I picked up my hire car and set off on my epic journey.

Here’s everything I got up to, from flights over glaciers to hikes around lakes.

Day 1 – Squamish & Whistler

On my last visit, I discovered Squamish on the way to Whistler and absolutely fell in love with it. For some reason, my Squamish post about why I prefer it to Whistler is very popular! Despite this, I had NEVER BEEN into the town itself!! What a fraud I was.

So first on the list this time: stopping in Squamish proper.

And yes, I love it even more now, and I still much prefer it to Whistler. What a gorgeous little town. I popped into a few shops and cafés, including F As In Frank, Sunflower Bakery & Café, and a couple of lovely gift shops. I somehow missed the Fox & Oak which apparently does the best doughnuts!

I didn’t do any repeat stops on this trip, but here are some stops I recommend on the Sea to Sky highway:

• Horseshoe Bay
• Shannon Falls (especially fantastic at full power in the spring, and I had planned to stop here with Ash)
• Sea to Sky gondola (it’s much better than the Grouse Mountain one, in my opinion)
• Brandywine Falls
• The train wreck trail

Read more: Squamish, And Why I Prefer It To Whistler

Onwards to Whistler… and slightly beyond. I was off to Green Lake, just north of the town, for a very special activity.

I’d been considering one of the Harbour Air scenic flights in Vancouver, as I’ve spent so much time sitting and watching their seaplanes in the harbour. I took one look at their website and discovered that they also do glacier tours from Whistler… one photo was all it took. I was SOLD.

This is one of the coolest things I’ve done! And best of all, the weather was PERFECT. Flying over Whistler to Cheakamus Lake and onwards to Garibaldi Lake, the views got better and better as the flight went on. We got so close to the glaciers that I could see all the details in the rocks; it was unbridled wilderness and beyond anything I’ve experienced!

After the flight, I was heading into Whistler proper to meet a friend for dinner. It was a lovely evening, but my opinion of Whistler hasn’t changed. I don’t love it. It’s a resort town, and that makes it great if you’re there for the ski season. Its surroundings are beautiful so it’s a great base in the summer too. But the village itself? Not a fan, I’m afraid. But that’s okay!

The one thing I didn’t manage to squeeze in was the short trail to the train wreck. That’s the second time I’ve failed to do it! That’s what I get for enjoying Squamish too much.

In fact, you could easily split this day into two and spend a full day in Whistler just taking the gondolas and hiking at the top. Just keep in mind the gondolas are expensive which is the main reason I haven’t done it – although on my first visit to Whistler, I used one as part of a ziplining tour, which was brilliant!

Read more about Whistler: Fun, Friends & Frolics in Whistler, Canada

Day 2 – Whistler to Revelstoke

Day 2 was a heck of a drive. When planning this trip, it had been under the assumption that Ash & I would be sharing the driving.

I *had* planned to get up early to do the Joffre Lakes hike on the way, which I think would have been just about do-able if I wasn’t also doing the entire 6.5 hour drive myself. (This is also the reason I didn’t do the train wreck trail in the morning, because it would have required a 15 minute drive in the wrong direction, and an extra half hour of driving just wasn’t worth it.)

Note that you have to apply for a free permit to do the Joffre Lakes trail now. I did this just in case, but cancelled it the night before so that it would be available for someone else.

Because of the change of plans, I decided to leave slightly later which gave me time to visit the Squamish Lil’wat Cultural Centre in Whistler instead. This is a really interesting museum exploring the culture of the First Nations of this area; something that I think Canada has been much better at acknowledging in the past few years. I asked about a guided tour, and ended up having a private tour with Brandon, a young guy from Squamish.

If you’re NOT planning a hike, there are a few other stops you can make on the way to Revelstoke:

• Nairn Falls
• Duffey Lake (pictured left)
• Seton Lake (pictured right)
• Lillooet

I actually stayed around 20 minutes west of Revelstoke, which made the drive slightly shorter; I wound up being very glad for this!

It’s not really a day that I have much to write about, but I WILL talk about where I stayed!

Three Valley Gap is a lakeside chateau where every room has a balcony, you can rent kayaks on the lake, and there’s an amazing indoor garden… AND an on-site ghost town!! Is there anything this place doesn’t have? A swimming pool themed around the Titanic? Worryingly, nope – it has that too!

I spent a large chunk of the evening in the pool and hot tub chatting to a few people, and on a different type of trip I would definitely stay there for two or three nights. It’s the perfect place to relax, and in close enough proximity to Revelstoke that there’s plenty to do nearby.

The only downside is that wifi doesn’t reach the rooms, so I had to go to the common areas to check in with everyone back home, and to finalise plans with my cousins who I’d be visiting next.

Day 3 – Revelstoke to Banff: Yoho National Park

It was time to head into the Rockies, with Glacier National Park being a worthy introduction.

Before that though, I spent some of the morning wandering around Revelstoke, another huge miss from our previous trip. There was a reason we’d missed it though; I had booked a paragliding session in Golden, but what I DIDN’T realise is that Golden is on Alberta time, which meant we were jumping ahead a full hour and skipping the time I’d planned to spend in Revy for lunch.

So this time I made sure to stop for breakfast. There are a ton of great places in Revelstoke, and I chose the delightful Luft!

Revelstoke would make a brilliant base for a couple of nights. There’s an entire self-contained road trip on the Meadows In The Sky (I was a little early in the season for that), a railway museum that looks fantastic, and plenty of indie shops and cafés to keep you occupied – and that’s before we get to the real attraction of the mountain resorts.

After a lovely drive through Glacier NP and changing timezones in Golden, I arrived at the very underrated Yoho National Park. Last time we were here, we were taken aback by Yoho. I recommend dedicating as much of the day to Yoho as possible!

To put it into perspective, Golden to Lake Louise is less than an hour’s drive – Yoho really isn’t big at all.

Read more: A Drive Through Two Underrated Canadian Rockies National Parks: Glacier & Yoho

First stop: Wapta Falls, but as we stopped there last time, I just made a quick pit stop for a photo of these splendid mountains – just a taster of what’s to come. It’s very much worth walking down to the bottom of the falls as there’s a fantastic view of them, and it’s better than the view from the top, in my opinion.

My main port of call this time would be the shimmering Emerald Lake, a few miles off the main road. This was possibly our biggest miss of all on our last trip.

Arriving around 3pm was the best decision I could have made. There were still cars parked waaaaay up the road, indicating a very full car park, but by the time I got to the car park itself, there were a few spaces.

I had decided to do the lakeshore trail, which is an easy 3 mile hike and takes 1.5-2 hours. I think I was close to 2 hours purely because of how often I stopped for photos! Trust me, this one’s a beauty. I think I did it the “wrong” way around as I crossed the bridge to the lodge and then kept going through the forest. It was only when I got to an info board about “the avalanche you’ve already passed” that I realised everyone on the trail had been going in the opposite direction to me. So I ended my hike traversing an avalanche which was acting as a barrier for people who either wanted to hike regardless and climbed over it quite happily, or saw it as enough of a hindrance to turn back.

On the way back down the Emerald Lake road, I stopped at Natural Bridge, a very impressive waterfall continuing to carve through the rock.

Unfortunately, the Takakkaw Falls road tends to open later in the season so I just missed that, otherwise I would have headed there too. And the other highlight I had to miss was Lake O’Hara, which is accessible only by shuttle or a 10km hike. The shuttle tickets are extremely competitive (on a lottery system that you need to enter in March) and knowing how limited I’d be on time, I didn’t even try.

To summarise, the best stops in Yoho:

• Emerald Lake
• Natural Bridge
• Wapta Falls
• Takakkaw Falls
• Lake O’Hara if you’re lucky enough to get shuttle tickets, or fancy a really long walk

In lieu of not being able to visit Takakkaw, I decided to make the most of the nice weather and pop by Lake Louise (just in case it was awful weather when I planned to go!). Lake Louise has free parking after 7pm so this worked out perfectly for a quick stop!

Day 4 – Banff

I’ve spent a fair amount of time in Banff over the years, yet there was so much I hadn’t done!

On this trip, my cousin took me on a bike ride out past Banff Springs to the Hoodoos viewpoint, then round the back of Tunnel Mountain, through town and back along the river. I also went for a couple of hikes with his wife, one to Castle Lookout, which is steep but provides sweeping views over Bow Valley. My biggest oversight of all was Tunnel Mountain, arguably the most accessible hike in the area, so I finally did that on this trip!

If you have just one day to dedicate to Banff itself, I recommend:

• Walk down Banff Avenue with a BeaverTails, stop at Cows for ice cream and ridiculous cow puns, and sort yourself out some souvenirs
• Hike Tunnel Mountain!
• Head over to Banff Springs to see Bow Falls
• On a nice day, check out Vermillion Lakes (right off the highway at the junction for Banff)
• Drive up to Lake Minnewanka

Day 5 – Banff & surrounds

With an extra day, I was planning to head out of town to Canmore or Kananaskis – unfortunately the main road in Kananaskis was closed due to a landslide, so instead, my cousin suggested a hike elsewhere.

The reason I did Lake Louise and Moraine Lake later in the trip, which would have been an obvious thing to do on this day, was that I was there right at the beginning of the season, so it gave me a buffer if there were any delays opening the Moraine Lake road; it also made more sense with my route as I’d be passing the lakes without coming back to Banff. Plus, there’s nothing like ending a trip on a high!

So today, I gave my legs a workout up the side of Castle Mountain in the morning, insanity set in and we decided to do Tunnel Mountain in the afternoon, and then we enjoyed a much-deserved happy hour dinner & drinks at the Otter Hotel.

Day 6 – Banff to Jasper: The Icefields Parkway

After an excellent breakfast at Coyote’s in Banff, it was time to head north to Jasper. And if you know, you know…

This is the most stunning road trip in the world, and so it was one part of the trip I wasn’t looking forward to doing without Ash.

Apart from anything else, I couldn’t really document any of the road trip as a solo driver. But then the weather was miserable BOTH ways up and down the Icefields Parkway, so that made me feel a little less guilty. Luckily we had both done the drive last time in perfect weather so at least we’ve experienced it at its best – and it’s why the above photo is from our 2018 trip!

I only made a handful of stops (I even skipped Peyto Lake which is my favourite lake!!) including a new one to me, Mistaya Canyon. In fact, it was great weather for waterfalls – less so for the lakes.

(Left: Mistaya Canyon. Right: Athabasca Falls)

However, my highlight?? Finally, finally, finally seeing a BEAR for the first time!!! In fact, I saw three in total on my trip!! What a thrill having this one lumbering across the road right in front of me.

I’ve done the Icefields Parkway a few times, and these are my favourite stops (in order from Lake Louise to Jasper):

• Bow Lake
• Peyto Lake
• Waterfowls Lakes
• Mistaya Canyon
• Columbia Icefield
• Sunwapta Falls
• Athabasca Falls

Read more: Road Tripping The Icefields Parkway In Autumn

(Left: Bow Lake in June 2026. Right: Peyto Lake in October 2018)

I arrived in Jasper around 4pm, which gave me the evening to explore Jasper town. I’ll be writing more about Jasper, not least because it was equal parts horrifying seeing the damage from the 2024 wildfires, and lovely being able to visit and support the town after everything they’ve been through.

All I’ll say is I ate at a place called Evil Dave’s and had the most amazing poutine!

Day 7 – Mount Robson & Jasper

Today was about getting out of town and seeing more of the national park – and beyond. Because while in Jasper, it seemed rude not to drive an hour to see the highest mountain in the Canadian Rockies, Mount Robson.

I’ve never been over that way before so when I woke up to a good forecast, I made a beeline for it! It’s actually over the border in BC, so I swapped time zones for the morning. Standing at 12,974ft, Mount Robson is about three times the height of Ben Nevis – it’s hard to put that into perspective in a photo.

What a view!

(And timed perfectly – ten minutes later, it had clouded over more so you couldn’t see the top of it any more!)

Next to the Mount Robson visitor centre is a beeeeeeeautiful hike to Kinney Lake. I didn’t think I’d have time because I’d read it takes 3-4 hours (I imagine it just depends how far along the lake you walk), but the visitor centre advised 3 hours so I went for it. In actual fact it took me 2.5 hours total including a 20 minute stop at the lake AND having to traverse the remains of an avalanche. For the views it’s one of the best effort to reward ratios I’ve ever done!

Just loooooooooook at those reflections!

After a very successful morning, it was back to Jasper for one of the staple sights. I’ve been to Jasper once before but I’ve never done the Maligne Lake cruise, so this seemed like a good time to rectify that.

Now firstly, I’ve spent a good ten years saying “Mal-eye-n” Lake… it’s actually Mal-een! Whoops! (This is exactly why I don’t do video content.)

So, armed with a cruise booking for Mal-een Lake, I continued through Jasper for another 50 minutes, past Medicine Lake (I would stop there afterwards) and… what’s this? A load of cars stopped by the side of the road? What have we spotted here, then? Surely not my second bear sighting in two days??

Nope – A MOOSE!!!

What a day this was shaping up to be. I had a slight mishap with my cruise ticket so I ended up with time for a cup of tea at the visitor centre, overlooking the lake in the sunshine.

The cruise itself is great, but of course the highlight is the destination, where we are treated to a spectacular view towards the back of Maligne Lake from Spirit Island. You don’t get much time on the “island”, but you don’t need it – I managed two full loops of the trail to get plenty of photos.

I got so lucky with the weather on this day of the trip!

Day 8 – Jasper to Lake Louise

Believe it or not, the drive back down to Lake Louise was also rainy. I’ve covered the Icefields Parkway on day 6, but my only stops today were Athabasca Falls and Bow Lake. There’s a small café at Bow Lake which made a perfect stop for lunch.

So onto the final stop in the Canadian Rockies: Lake Louise.

Now, I’m going to write a whole post on Lake Louise, Moraine Lake and the shuttle experience, but what you need to know is that you can park at Lake Louise for a whopping $42 if you can find a space, and that you can’t visit Moraine Lake at all with a car. Therefore it’s vital that you book either a shuttle or a tour to see Moraine, unless you hire a bike, and it’s sensible to book one for Lake Louise as well. Whichever shuttle you book, you can also catch connector shuttles between the two lakes.

I was booked on the 2pm-3pm shuttle to Lake Louise, which meant I could hop on any shuttle within that hour timeslot. Obviously I parked up at 1.59pm and got on the first shuttle I could.

It did mean, however, that I didn’t have time to do the Plain of the Six Glaciers hike which I had planned, because that was the earliest shuttle I’d been able to book – though apparently it wasn’t recommended anyway due to a lot of snow still on the trail, so I settled for the Little Beehive instead (which also had some snow!).

I arrived at Lake Louise to yet more rain, so I actually hopped on the connector shuttle to Moraine just in case it was even worse tomorrow, and by the time I got back, the rain stopped in time for me to do the hike and didn’t really start up again until I was finished! I was so lucky with my hikes even with such patchy weather.

In fact, the combo meant one thing: a rainbow!!!

If you’re not planning a hike, this could be sufficient time at both lakes, but I’d recommend a morning visit to Moraine Lake and you’re about to find out why.

Day 9 – Moraine Lake (+ Lake Louise)

I managed to get a 7am time slot for Moraine Lake! This meant I’d avoid the sunrise crowds and still hopefully get there early enough for reflections…

So was it worth it?

ABSO-FRICKIN-LUTELY.

Moraine Lake is a real gem and one of my highlights of Canada, even on a cloudy day. That said, you don’t need a lot of time there. Once I’d had my fill of reflection shots and ground squirrels, I decided to do the lakeshore trail, but in all honesty it’s not a must-do. The best view is from the rock pile.

There are, however, a few longer hikes in the area that look fantastic, like the Consolation Lakes trail, or you could hop on the connector shuttle to Lake Louise for more hiking. In fact, I’d probably recommend doing exactly that instead of splitting Lake Louise and Moraine Lake over two days like I did, but I hadn’t originally been able to get a morning shuttle at all and I had my heart set on doing a hike at Lake Louise.

From Moraine Lake, I split off from the route you’re likely to take and headed down through Kootenay National Park. This is a nice add-on if you want somewhere a little more off-beat. Marble Canyon is a highlight and not too far down, but you could always go down to Radium Hot Springs for a nice soak.

Day 10 – onwards and probably downwards

We’ve gone in completely different directions now. Presumably you’re off to Calgary, taking in a few places en route like the Bow Valley Parkway where you can stop at Johnston Canyon, or fitting in a few places you missed around Banff or Canmore. Or maybe you added on a day in Whistler right at the start, so you’re running a day behind.

Me? I have a flight home from Vancouver, and I’m spending close to a week with family on the way. I said I wasn’t going to include any of this, but I really must share a photo of the fabulous flamingo.

I stayed two nights with my aunt and uncle in Kimberley BC, and then we all headed down with another aunt to their lakeside cabin at Christina Lake, where we met my other cousins (the non-Banff ones). This is likely to be my last time at the cabin, and luckily the weather changed for the better!

And then it was a looooong drive back to Vancouver! I’ve done this before, and to be honest I am not bothered about doing it again. I’m sticking to the 10 day itinerary next time.

Anyway, it was a fantastic trip. Very much a mix of family time and exploring old highlights in more depth as well as finding new ones.

I could always keep coming back to Canada. There is always more to explore, even if I did this same road trip over and over again.

I’ll be writing a load more soon about this road trip, but in the meantime, read more of my previous Canada posts:
⭐ My Top 10 Things To Do In Vancouver
⭐ Road Tripping The Icefields Parkway In Autumn
⭐ A Drive Through Two Underrated Canadian Rockies National Parks: Glacier & Yoho
⭐ Squamish, And Why I Prefer It To Whistler
⭐ Fun, Friends & Frolics in Whistler, Canada
⭐ A Short & Sweet Trip To Vancouver Island: Beautiful Victoria, BC