Canadian Rockies return to Calgary or Edmonton?
 

We are in beginning planning stages of trip to Candadian Rockies next July. We plan to do South to North, flying into Missoula, driving to Glacier NP, ending up in Jasper about 9 days later. My question is, would it be better to fly home from Edmonton or Calgary if our last real stop is Jasper? Looks to me like they are both about equal in distance. Also, what would be the quickest way to drive from Waterton to Banff? Would that be via Calgary? Any thots would be appreciated and thanks in advance.

Expedia maps says it is four hours to Edmonton airport and about five hours to Calgary. Depending where you are flying back to Calgary might have more flight choices.

It is indeed one hour less driving to get to Edmonton airport, however, the drive to Calgary down the Icefield Parkway is much MUCH nicer than the drive to Edmonton; it is in the mountains almost all the way (vs. only the first 45 minutes to Edmonton), and even though you may have driven north on the parkway a few days earlier, you get different views of the mountains when you drive south.

We recently went on a vacation, and since flights out of Edm and Calgary to our destination were the same price, we opted to fly from Calgary, for the better drive. Btw, we have lived in Jasper for over 25 years, and still go "WOW" everytime we drive down the parkway.

One consideration that may help determine which airport to fly out of is flight times. Because of the driving time, when we fly anywhere, we often wind up having to stay overnight near the airport the night before unless we can get a flight that is later in the day.

Agree that we will plan to head back to either place the day before. Thanks for the feedback.

A couple of tips on this trip from a "local"
The drive from Jasper to Calgary through the national parks is indeed spectacular. As well, the Edmonton airport is located miles out of town--a very expensive cab ride if you give up your rental car and take a cab in the morning --the Calgary airport is right in the city. As well, Calgary is the "hub" so many flights out of Edmonton touch down in Calgary--from Calgary you can get many more direst flights.

If you are driving from Waterton to Banff, the quickest way is to go to Cardston and take # 2 to Calgary., but a much less travelled highway (therefore almost as fast) and much more scenic is to take #6 until it hooks up with #22 just outside of Pincher Creek--it takes you to Calgary through the foothills--beautiful.

I second taking the #22. It is a beautiful drive and one of my favourites.

Are you planning to rent a car and have you confirmed that you can rent in one country and drop off in another? I'd expect the cost to be considerable because US cars have mile odomoters, but Canada uses metric, so the rental company might have difficulty renting it out when it is dropped off in the second contry.

Ok, thanks for the additional tips! Also, we are now planning on flying in and out of Calgary, so negates the rental car dropoff.

KayD

These days the rental company (and any of its customers) can usually just push the button that switches the entire dashboard data to metric.

While you are correct about the possible high costs, it won't be because of the metric/engish differences.

I do not recommend to fly from Edmonton.

We have made the mistake to book a flght from Edmonton, as we thought, there is no difference between Calgary & Edmonton. What a mistake: There were no highway signs in Edmonton and we had to cross the whole town on our way from Jasper. The result was, that we underestimated the time and we missed the flight leaving from Edmonton (it took us two hours to cross Edmonton during the rush hour). This has never happened in Calgary before. Calgary has road signs in place and it is very easy to find the way from Banff towards Calgary International Airport.