Hi there,
My friends are going to be in Banff for a few days later this month (I know, it's pretty last minute but they didn't know either) and are looking for a decent hotel for max about $150 a night. Since they won't have a car, they'd like to be downtown in whatever part of town is the nicest.

Help please?
Thanks
gtg

Provided one of them has a valid drivers license, they should be able to get a good hotel room and a rental car for $150 per day/night. It is much better to be mobile than dependent on a bus or taxi. The Icefield highway is nice between Banff and Jasper. I have rented a car in Jasper but never in Banff.

tom,
do you mean a package deal of some sort (room + car +$150)? If so, can you suggest where?

Banff is eitgher pretty small or pretty big, depending on your approach.

The downtown main street is only a few blocks long, lined with stores and restaurants. At one end there's a museum and a river, and on the other side, a few minutes walk to the giant Banff Springs Hotel.

Easy enough to walk around in, EXCEPT it skips all the nature stuff like mountains and hiking trails and the buffalo compund and the other rivers.

We are, of course, puzzled by how you are going to get there.

Dropped out of the sky by parachute?

If not that way, perhaps you are arriving in Calgary by airliner. You may find that renting a car at the Calgary airport and using it to get to and from Banff instead of taking the express bus with seperate fares for each of you, starts to make financial sense.

And depending on what interests you, the car makes it easy to go see Lake Louise, and as suggested above, head up the Icefields Highway.

The $150 budget is probably pretty tight in late June, with the tourists starting to flow. Consider the town of Canmore, too, at the gates to Banff National Park.

Well, I wish it were me that's going but it's not.

They're going to Banff from either Edmonton or Calgary and that's all I know. They'll be in both those cities but I'm not sure which is first.

I think they're now looking at a special at the Fairmont Banff Springs hotel which will get them a room for about $165 (CAA membership deal and a night free or something like that).

With my budget, I ride the Canadian into Jasper, rent a car and stay at the HI Hostel just outside town. The hostel costs less than half what any of the Fairmont hotels are asking. For seeing the area by bus, Brewster runs the tours from the east side of the ViaRail station in Jasper.

I emailed them last night and suggested that they rent a car. The cost of a car for the three or four days they're going to be there may not be more than other transportation for two and will give them more freedom.