Travel Tips

You will find all paved highways in BC and Alberta to be exceptional, and all will be suitable for your rv.

All of the government-run campgrounds have a self-registration program in effect after 9:00 or 10:00 at night. Some campgrounds have this type of system all day. What this means is that you drive through the campgrounds and find the perfect spot. Note the number on the spot (there will be a post at the front of the campsite with the site number on it) and return to the main gate area. You will find envelopes there which you need to complete with name, licence plate, date, site number, etc. You put your fee for the night into the envelope and then there will be some sort of locking box that you slip your envelope into. They collect the envelopes the next morning. If you're really late pulling in somewhere, you can just find a spot and go to sleep. You can go back in the morning to register, or the park staff often come around in the morning and collect your fee if you haven't registered yet. Note that if you are self-registering you need to have cash and the exact change, because no change will be available.

Not all campgrounds have power and water hookups for rv's. The campground guides will help you determine which places have the hookups you want. Any campground which has power should have the correct amperage for your rv; however, if you are planning on staying at a privately-run campground, you might want to inquire what amperage their sites have. It would be very rare, but there may be a few camp-grounds which only have 15 amp outlets and your rv may require a 30 amp outlet. As I said, this would be very rare, but I would ask so that you know in advance. The problem with running on 15 amp when you should be on 30 amp becomes an issue if you are running all the bells and whistles that your rv has, all at the same time. You could possibly overheat the wiring and stuff like that.

When you are camping in an rv, it often acts as both your camper and your car. So what do you do with your campsite during the day, when you drive away in your rv to go exploring? How do you stop someone else from taking your spot while you're out?

When you register at a campground, your registration envelope has a "stub" on it that tears off. Make sure you tear this stub off before you deposit your registration envelope. You will fill out the stub with the date, site #, etc. When you pull into your campsite, you should find a small clip on the post at the front of your site (the post with the site number on it). You put your stub in the clip when you get into your site. This tells everyone that the site is already taken, even if the site appears to be vacant. This will also help you when looking for a camp site - if there's a stub on the post with today's date on it, you can't have that site, because someone else has already paid for it.

One website which has lots of good information on travelling and camping throughout Canada is:

Transcanadahighway

It lists mile-by-mile what there is to see along the trans canada (#1) highway from coast to coast. It lists all rv parks, both provincially-run and private, along the way as well. There are also links to every community along this highway.

One word of caution: NONE of the provincial parks in BC have campgrounds with electrical hook-ups!!! This can be a problem b/c even if your fridge runs on propane, other things in your rv, like a roof-top air conditioning unit, your microwave, tv, etc won't run without a power hook-up. You would need a generator in this case, which is fairly expensive to buy. We like to search out private rv parks in BC as these generally include an electrical service. (This is where the trans canada highway website comes in handy!)

Alberta provincial parks generally have both serviced and non-serviced sites.

We have found that 50 mph (80 kmph) is the perfect highway speed for our RV. At this speed you have good control over the vehicle and you will probably be impressed with your gas mileage. We realized soon after buying our RV that increasing our speed by even 10 mph reduces our gas mileage by at least 25%! This speed applies to straight roads that are in good condition. On mountainous roads or in heavy rain or other bad weather you will need to adjust your speed accordingly.

I was pretty nervous about driving when we first got our RV. I soon realized that the best thing I could do was to slow down until I got accustomed to the size of the RV and how it handled on the road. It really didn't take very long for me to start feeling more confident. So, just remember - it's okay to slow down a bit. Other drivers will pass you, if they're in a hurry. It's much better to take a little longer to get somewhere and be able to maintain control over the vehicle than it is to try keeping up with traffic and end up in an accident.

Before you set out on the road, take a few minutes to ensure that everything in the RV is secured and all propane bottles are turned off. Remember to lock the fridge door. There's nothing worse than turning a corner and hearing your the contents of your fridge hitting the floor!

There are a variety of spots where you can camp, ranging from privately-owned campgrounds and rv parks, to municipally, provincially and federally-owned parks. They can be serviced (power, water and sewer hook-ups) or non-serviced. Serviced sites can have any combination of the above three services. There may or may not be shower facilities onsite, which can be free or pay per use. In some campgrounds, the bathrooms are just outhouses, or pit toilets.

Private campgrounds tend to be more expensive but tend to have more services and/or activities (such as showers, laundromats, swimming pools, mini-golf, horse back riding, etc) than government campgrounds. Note that this is not always the case - some private sites are dumps! Private campgrounds tend to be quieter, b/c they have a more "hands-on" policing of regulations, and also b/c they are smaller.

Government run campgrounds are often very large. Municipal campgrounds can be very "iffy" - b/c they are usually within town limits. This can limit the scenery considerably! My favorite municipal campground is in Devon, Alberta (near Edmonton). It is in the river valley, alongside the North Saskatchewan River. Very beautiful and very, very clean!!! In contrast, a lot of municipal campgrounds are on bald, flat prairie, often without even any trees! They may or may not be serviced. You just have to sort of play it by ear if you are considering a municipal campground - you never know till you get there what you're going to get!

Provincial and Federal campgrounds are usually located along something scenic - like a river or lake, or in the forest or the mountains. They frequently have playgrounds and ranger programs for the kids. There will be an information site somewhere in the campground (usually at the area where you register for your camping) which will give you info on what programs are going on that week, and where to find them. The programming is generally geared towards nature & the environment.

The tourist guides will list all campgrounds and which facilities are available in each one.

All provinces in Canada have a tourism office, which puts out some sort of free guide every year, containing info on lodgings, campgrounds, and attractions and activities.

In Alberta, there are 3 guides which are printed, a campground guide, an accomodation guide (hotels, B&B, etc) and an attractions guide. They are free and can be found at any tourist info building in the province, as well as in many hotel and restaurant lobbies. They can also be downloaded on the internet, at this site:
Alberta

They are downloadable in several languages.

British Columbia has a similar guide, except that they list both hotels and campgrounds in one accomodation guide. You can search their guide at

BC

You can order this guide by calling (in Canada) 800-hellobc. You can also pick it up in BC at any tourist info building.

The remaining provinces have tourism websites, as follows:

Saskatchewan

Manitoba

Ontario

Quebec

NovaScotia

PEI

NewBrunswick

Newfoundland

One thing we do often when travelling in the rv is to overnight in a rest area. This is essentially an area where you pull off the highway to take a break. There will be a few picnic tables and bathrooms there. Note that the bathrooms may be the "flush" or the "non-flush" variety. If the rest area has flush toilets there will also be cold running water in the sinks. The rest areas are free, which can help cut down on the camping costs if this is an issue.

We find that if we are travelling late at night, we prefer pulling into a rest area rather than a campground. That way, we can just quickly pull in, park and go to bed. You don't have to spend time backing into a site, levelling everything, etc. Of course you wouldn't want to spend every night camping out this way. But, if you are tired and seem to be driving in the middle of nowhere with no campgrounds in sight, you can always sleep overnight in a rest area. You can count on finding them along all highways.

Some sites have signs up that say "no overnight camping". You may want to obey the signage but my personal opinion has always been that law officials are hesitant to wake up a potentially tired driver and send them packing down the highway, only to have the person fall asleep at the wheel a few miles down the road. I would caution you that if you stop in a rest area, make sure you're gone in the morning! If you try to set up your lawn chairs and the like and stay for a few days for free, you can bet somebody will come along and give you the boot!

No electricity is available in the rest areas, so you will have to run your fridge on propane if you overnight in one.

Picnic areas are a little different from rest areas. These places are usually clearly marked "no overnight camping" and they usually enforce it. Nevertheless, these are generally nice spots to stop and prepare a roadside lunch or dinner for your family. You will find picnic tables and sometimes a bbq type of structure. You need to bring your own wood for the bbq as it won't be supplied. (Picking up deadfall is an offense in the parks!) If we are planning on picnicking, we generally bring along our Coleman stove or tabletop propane bbq, since you can't totally count on finding a bbq in your picnic area. The other option is to bring food that doesn't need to be cooked, such as sandwich and salad fixings.

You will also find pit toilets in all picnic areas.

This picture shows what a typical picnic area in one of our parks will look like. Many are wheelchair accessible. All have RV parking and plenty of room to turn your unit around

When in the mountains, you generally have plenty of wildlife viewing opportunities, but you need to know where to go. Spotting wildlife from the comfort of your car as it zooms along the Trans Canada highway is a rarity. If you get off the beaten track a bit or even head out on a hiking trail, your wildlife spotting opportunities increase exponentially. I have always found that fall is a particularly good time for seeing wildlife.

In my travels throughout Alberta and BC, I have been fortunate to have viewed moose, elk, deer, big horned sheep and even the elusive mountain goat. I have seen many bears - grizzlies and black bears and every conceivable type of bird and squirrel. Also cougars, a bobcat, badgers, coyotes and even a few wolves. Wolf sightings are almost as rare as mountain goat sightings so I consider myself quite fortunate to have seen several in my travels.

Early morning and evening are the best times for wildlife sightings.

This particular moose was recently spotted along the Smith Dorian Trail (also known as the Spray Lakes Trail), which winds up out of the south end of Canmore and ends in Peter Lougheed Prov Park, where it connects to the Kananaskis Trail.

We had such a great wildlife viewing day last Sunday, that I just HAD to put up another photo. This one is of a cow moose that was having lunch along the road while her calf slept close by. I have to tell you that this photo was not taken with a zoom lens! But it *was* taken from the safety of our vehicle! (Safety first, folks, these critters can trample you)!