Fodor's Travel Talk Forums - Fly or Drive From Calgary to Vancouver?

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Fly or Drive From Calgary to Vancouver?

In light of the lousy weather here (Winter has returned), I decided to start planning our fall trip a little early. Maybe it will make me feel better :) Toying with the idea of taking 3 weeks or so to go out west, FINALLY! Have never been! So in the very early stages, we have thought of the following: 1. Fly into Calgary, travel around Banff, Lake Louise, Jasper etc, drive to BC, (leaving from Jasper), do Whistler, Vancouver, Tofino etc. Fly home out of Vancouver. Pay drop off charges for rental car. OR 2. Fly into Calgary, do the same as above, and drive from Vancouver back to Clagary to return rental car (although this seems ridiculous) but could be worthwhile if scenic/interesting enough) OR 3. Fly into Calgary, tour Banff, Lake Louise, Jasper, and back down to Calgary, return rental, then fly to Vancouver and pick up another one and travel around BC. Here are the issues: I am leaning to flying from Calgary to Vancouver but am I missing a fabulous drive from Jasper down into BC, by returning to Calgary and flying to Vancouver? Is this negated by having to drive back To Calgary from Vancouver at the end of the trip? Or just pay the drop off fees because the trip from Jasper into BC is worth it? The cost of the drop off charges is about the same as the two of us flying from Calgary to Vancouver. Or skip it altogether and fly in and out of BC? As I said, we are in the very early stages and I am sure as the summer progresses I will have a ton more questions, but for now I am just trying to get a feel for what is the best way to sort this part of the itinerary out. I dont know if this matters or not on deciding to make the drive from Jasper down into BC, but we are not hikers. But we love to drive and love the mountains! I understand the Icefields Parkway is fabulous and that is what we are looking forward to, so is the trip from Japser into BC as worthwhile/ scenic? (One of the reasons I didnt mind making the trip back down into Calgary, ie: doing it in both directions). One other consideratioin of course is the time to drive from Jasper to Vancouver and Vancouver to Calgary....it just seems like a lot of time that could be used exploring any of the towns/cities we want to get to. We are not great "planners", we tend to travel off season to avoid the crowds, make few reservations, just go as our hearts and our whim take us. We are thinking of late September/October. Thanks in advance for any help you can offer.

Why not spend the night in Golden and drive it from there? If you take the Trans Canada, the route leads over Rogers Pass in Glacier National Park and over the flank of Mt. Revelstoke. The Fraser Canyon route is scenic, but if you want to press on quicker, take the Coquihalla Freeway from Kamloops to Hope. I suggest Vancouver first. After you have been in the Canadian Rockies a few days, you may decided not to leave. On the other hand, I now just go to the Rockies. Twice in Victoria satisfied my curiosity. And cities other than London, Paris, Vienna, and New York don't really thrill me.

Thanks for the response Bob. LOL, one of the reasons we have never been out west yet, is that we are afraid that we might not leave! We both said we might just go there and stay! Scenic route would be the best, I will have another look at some maps next week. Actually I should head down to CAA and get some stuff for the trip. I have read many of your postings Bob and they are all very informative, they will certainly help when I get down to planning the nitty gritty aspects, and I'll get out my notepad then! So, in a nutshell, you think this drive is worth it then? One of the reasons we were doing Banff/Jaspoer areas first was due to the lateness in the season. We thought we would be better off there in late September than later in October. Tentative dates are 3rd week of September to mid October, but that is very likely to change between now and then! Thanks again.

Is the drive from Banff to Vancouver worth it? A very good question. Part of the route is pretty, very scenic. If you have the time to take the Fraser Canyon deviation, I think you will be rewarded. On the other hand the road via Salmon Arm can be slow going. Once you reach Hope, the route into Vancouver is just like any other freeway. The Fraser River Valley is relatively flat,and the mountains are not at close range. In fact that valley is about the only flat ground in the western half of the province. (BC is amazingly mountainous.) I tend not to mind driving long distances, so my basis for reasoning may be a little different from yours. If you have time, a deviation from the Trans Canada might be worth considering. From Revelstoke drive south along the Columbia. Follow route 6 from Nakusp and turn west over the mountains to Vernon. From there you can go northwest to Kamloops and pick up the Fraser River route, or drive south through Kelowna and take the road over to the Coquahalla Freeway and continue on to Hope that way. It is a little longer, but you get to see the Okanagen Valley, which is pretty. If you are pressed for time, then I would fly it as you suggested earlier. I think a lot of it depends on what you want to see. In Victoria, I liked Butchart Gardens and the BC Museum very near the harbor. The Gardens are special; the museum is interesting without being overwhelming. The exhibits on the timber industry are particularly informative as are the ones on the native population.

Definitely drive through the rockies. We drove from Vancouver to Calgary in a rental car & were pleasantly surprised when no drop off charge applied. I think it was with Hertz. We drove from Vancouver to Kamloops (overnight) then on to Jasper for one night. Two nights in Banff & dropped the car off in Calgary. The drive was spectacular with many, many stops along the way to see the wild life & scenic spots. Give yourself lots of time to enjoy everything. The drive is awesome.

Thanks again! And thanks for the Hertz tip. It appears they dont have a drop charge (on most cars anyway) but they are more expensive per rental, so I guess it all works out in the wash somehow. Interesting thing this car rental business :) Thrifty rents for the same prices in Alberta or BC. Same drop charges ($350) etc. Same airport fees, but of course the only difference is the provincial taxes. Hertz on the other hand has different prices if you pick up the car in Alberta vs BC. Its more expensive in Alberta, so I guess they are making up the tax difference after all. And some of Hertz vehicles have unlimited mileage, some dont. Some have drop charges, some dont. And then of course there is the airport premium fees. Seems cheaper to take a cab downtown and pick up your car there. Because on a 3 week rental or so this airport premium works out to close to $200. With Thrifty the cost of renting the full size car doubles after they add on drop charges and taxes and premiums. But I am digressing here, lol, thats a whole other post about car rentals I guess. Never thought renting a car required so much searching! Obviously I dont dont it very often. Re driving vs flying, I am sure I will change my mind as the time approaches, but I think we will drive it after all. Seems like a nice part of the trip that we would be missing, and we enjoy driving long distances as well. Just not in a hurried fashion. So one solution might be to add on more time. Seems like 3 weeks is not going to be quite enough. I appreciate all the input thus far. Have spent the last two days reading almost every post here on Alberta and BC. Great info available thats for sure!

If it was me, and I've done all the combinations you mention, I'd fly to Calgary, rent the car, drive into the Rockies and up to Jasper and then to Vancouver, Victoria, etc., and I'd drop off the car there and fly home. Why? Because you can spend longer in each place, instead of devoting two days for the return drive from Vancouver to Calgary, combined with the idea that you've already spent the better part of seven or so days in the mountains. If you've got two spare days, instead of returning to Calgary you could drive into Washington State and look around and then come back to the Vancouver airport. Yes, it is possible to drive a circle route through the mountains to and from Calgary, and yes, it is beautiful and interesting, so if you decide to do this, you'll still have a great time. But, for me, one long mountain drive, Calgary to Banff to Lake Louise to Japser to Vancouver, and one smaller mountain drive, up the coast from Vancouver and back down again, are enough mountain drives. BAK

I have an alternative suggestion: Enjoy the Jasper area, turn in your rental car, and hop on the Rocky Mountaineer to Vancouver. The RM is an excursion train, not so very expensive compared to car rental, gas, food, etc. and you'll get to relax and enjoy the scenery instead of having to pay attention to your driving. It stops overnight in Kamloops where you get off and have a night's stay in a hotel so the entire train trip is in daylight. You'll see some of the most spectacular scenery you ever have or ever will see. I've made the trip twice and I'll be on it again at my next opportunity.

Thanks for the suggestions. I did look into the Rocky Mountaineer a few days ago, however its close to $1,400 for 2 of us for the basic travel level so driving certainly seems a better option to us. Thanks though for the idea!

That $1400 may not be as bad as it sounds if it is in Canadian dollars. Otherwise, they have significantly raised their prices since I was on it a few years ago.

The nice thing about BC is that there's a lot of geographic variation within a relatively short distance. Because there are several mountain chains dividing the province into long narrow strips, when you drive across BC from east to west, depending on the route you take, it can be quite dramatic - ranging from jagged alpine scenery, to lush valleys, to semi-arid sagebrush country, to the subtle slopes in the Cascades... and then to Fraser Valley... to misty temperate rainforests. All within a day, if you're incredibly ambitious. But I wouldn't recommend doing it in one day!! My point being that BC is the most geographically and biologically diverse part of Canada. I think there are more species of wildlife and plants in BC than the rest of Canada combined. To fly over it would be a waste, especially if you have 3 weeks, and haven't been here before. Have you thought about driving through the Okanagan at all on your way from the Rockies to Vancouver? That would be my suggestion, as it would give you something quite different from the Rockies and from the coastal setting around Vancouver. My suggestion would be, once you leave the Rockies, drive to Revelstoke, onto Sicamous, and then take Hwy 97 south into Vernon, Kelowna and/or Penticton. In the late summer, especially September, this is probably the best month to be here. This is a semi-arid region (home to Canada's only desert - with cactus and rattlesnakes!), is also home to a large fruit industry, so a lot of the hillsides have large orchards with impressive fruit stands. The best fruit produced in BC is grown here, and by September, all the apples, peaches, nectarines, plums, strawberries, etc... are ripe and available. Then of course, the Okanagan is home to the BC wine industry, with many vineyards lining the hills. Many of the wineries give free tours and tastings, and September is at the beginning of the harvest. Hwy 97 follows along Okanagan Lake - one of the deepest lakes in Canada, if not the world, famous for the mysterious "Ogopogo" - the cousin to Scotland's Loch Ness monster. There are all sorts of lakeside towns to stop off at too. Kelowna and Penticton are the largest cities on the lake, and offer a lot of hotel/motel options. The beaches are great for swimming as well. Once you head out of the Okanagan, you can take either the Coquihalla toll freeway (Hwy 5) from Kelowna to Merritt, to Hope (the small town about a 2 hour drive east of Vancouver, where all the major highways join up before entering Vancouver). This route is fast, but it's not really exciting, nor are there any places to stop off. My preferred route (one that my family has taken many times during summer vacations) is to head to Pentiction, and head down Hwy 3. Hwy 3 takes you through Manning Provincial Park - the southern most part of the Cascade mountain range in Canada... just along the BC-Washington border) - lots of great trails, camping sites, and picnic spots. It takes a little over an hour to drive through Manning Park. Then once you leave the park, you're out of the Cascade range, and you're in Hope... a 2 hour drive east of Vancouver. The Okanagan/Manning Park route gives you more to see, in my opinion, and definitely more varied scenery. It's a popular route to take for vacationers in BC and Alberta, but unfortunately many bypass it because they're unaware of its existence. Well, hope that helps!

Wow, thanks so much for such detailed routes to take. I will be printing these out. As I keep saying, we love to drive around, no hurry type of vacation, which is why we tend to travel off season, no commitments to reach a location by a certain time, therefore we tend not to have reservations, lol. And if we flew, we were going to take a few days to go up to the Okanagan area anyway, so we might as well drive it coming down. Thanks again for all the insightful comments. However it is looking more and more as if 4 weeks will be required! Lots of trips we take we drive to and from our destination, and they always turn into 4 weeks or so even though we start out with a 3 week plan, so the only problem I'm going to have this time is that we will have flown out west and therefore are a little more rigid in departing to come home! Although a few change of ticket fees have been known to happen to me before! PS yes that was in CDN funds for the RM