Banff National Park Transportation Tips by richiecdisc

Trans-Canada Highway

Banff National Park is an immense area, let alone if you take into consideration it being surrounded by Jasper, Kootenay, and Yoho National Parks. You really need a vehicle to properly explore just Banff so it is likely you will drive to the park.

We came from Vancouver in our own car, making a stop in Kamloops for the night which is about the half-way point. Vancouver is 850 kilometers and about 9.5 hours driving time. We saw an incredible red full moon just outside of Kamloops and knew it was time to call it a night.

Heading east from there to Calgary, the more typical gateway city, is 125 kilometers and 1.5 hours. If you are going all the way to Glacier National Park in Montana as we were, it is about 500 kilometers or 6 hours. We broke this trip up as we spent the day in Banff and left in the latter part of the afternoon, stopping just short of the Montana border for the night.

The Trans-Canada Highway runs right through the heart of Banff National Park and is quite an engineering feat with numerous animal corridor crossings running over what has become a four-lane highway. The entire corridor, 60 kilometers of highway, is fenced off. It is likely best for animal migration and certainly for their safety if you are going to run such a big highway through a National Park.

It is an incredibly scenic road without a doubt but I found it a bit disconcerting driving on such a highway within the confines of a National Park. Speed limits are posted and are slow enough considering it is fenced off, but it's easy to start speeding when you have such a straight wide road in front of you. Now, it must be understood that this is also a major Canadian Highway, not just a park road so under different strains.

Enjoy the drive and watch your foot on the pedal.

Mode: TO

Type: Car/Motor Home