Canada!

[Simpo Two]

Much to my excitement I'm heading to Canada in July, landing in Calgary. After seeing that and a bit of the Stampede, we'll be on Lake Shuswap for a few days, and then have a week or so to take in as much of the country as possible. I love scenery, mountains, lakes, wilderness but also like somewhere decent to stay. We'll hire a car and could take short flights to something good (I'd like to try a floatplane as I haven't been in one before). So my question is - could you make some suggestions for a first-time tourist to that side of Canada please?

Oh yes, and do I need to buy a cowboy outfit and big white hat for the Stampede?

[Simpo Two]

sawman said:

Head to the Badlands of Alberta, for ghost towns and quite interesting Canyon country (looks like proper friday night western territory), The Royal Tyrell dinosaur museum in Drumheller is pretty cool. and only an hour or so east of calgary

The Rockies - Banff etc is a couple of hours drive west., further west whale watching in vancouver

Also you could head south over the border to mount Rushmore (probably best to fly)

Thanks for the ideas. Vancouver has a certain draw - perhaps not the city for its own sake but the Pacific coast area. So if we look at the area between there and Sicamous/Lake Shuswap... there's Kamloops, Kelowna... a series of hops by car perhaps, or maybe a flight - are there any suitable airfields without going all the way back to Calgary? Would like to include a floatplane trip - can one lake-hop? Would need accommodation each night of course, maybe a nice motel tucked away somewhere scenic...

[Simpo Two]

^^ Thank you very much folks, good info. Anyone else?

Time is not vast so whilst driving to Vancouver is a fallback, is it possible to fly there from the lakes area?

[Simpo Two]

Thanks very much Greg and crmcatee, all useful stuff. Anyone else want to venture some ideas/places/things?

[Simpo Two]

Thanks to Vagon and fttm for the extra thoughts.

The trip is now largely fixed, all except three days when I'll leave the boat party on Lake Shuswap, and would like to head west to Victoria and Vancouver. I'll have a hire car at my disposal but to save time the idea is to drive to Kelowna, then fly direct to Victoria. Or I could drive to Vancouver I suppose, though am not a fan of driving on the right and would prefer to avoid city driving. So if I fly to Victoria I arrive at 3.45pm on a Thursday, and have until Sunday morning to see as much as possible.

I see that Harbour Air do a wide selection of trips and I'm sure those would fill my time very well, but they publish no times and despite e-mailing them twice have got no further forward. Tourist Offices send me links but don't seem keen to organise/fit together a schedule for me.

This is my 'must-do' trip http://www.harbourair.com/tours/whistler/alpine-la... - so I think one day will be dedicated to Whistler. I wonder if there are any bespoke travel agents to whom I can say 'This is the kind of stuff I like - fix up three days inclusive of everything and send me the bill'?