yellowstone or lake louise
 

My husband and I are planning our vacation for next year. We like water and mountains, in addition to staying at one hotel for the week and being able to walk or take a shuttle to daytime activities like hiking, kayaking, bicycling, sight seeing. Which destination is better -Yellowstone or Lake Louise. Any other suggestions are appreciated too!

IMHO you will need a car for either place. Maybe LL will have something - do some research but Yellowstone is so big that you don't want to be without a car.

The two parks are so vastly different that I selecting one over the other is very arbitrary and personal.

I don't think you will find many shuttles at either place.
Yellowstone without a car would be impossible, unless you are an expert hitch hiker.

Lake Louise is just one of the many beautiful lakes in the Banff - Jasper National Park areas. Please don't just limit yourself to Lake Louise.

It would be hard to choose which one to visit because they are both so beautiful, but since you are looking for one with transportation then you might be better off at Lake Louise.

Check out the transportation in the area at this web site:

http://www.parkscanada.gc.ca/pn-np/a...transportation

Utahtea

I am doing both places, starting in the Canadian Rockies. But I am planning to visit the geysers,too.
It is a bit of a drive, but I grew up riding between Alabama and California, Palo Alto and San Luis Obispo to be exact.

I have been to Yellowstone twice and enjoyed it very much. Some friends of ours just returned this week from a vacation there and they stayed a night or two in each of the park lodges, Old Faithful Inn, Yellowstone Lake Lodge, etc. They really loved it because they planned activities each day that were built around the hotel area they were staying. They did have a car however. They did plan ranger led hikes that originated close to their hotel each morning. Maybe you intend to have a car but just don't want to do much driving while you are there so this plan might work for you.

I think of Yellowstone as a place to go, go, go. There are so many sights to see, etc. Lake Louise is slower paced and more relaxing, IMO. You can't go wrong with either choice.

What gorgeous choices! To me although Yellowstone has a lake and it is nice, the park highlights are the water in the canyon, the geysers, and the wildlife. As stated above, you could choose an OF lodging for a couple of days to walk to geysers and a Canyon lodging for a couple of days for the canyon, but you do have to get in the car to get to Lamar Valley and other great spots. Most people go to Grand Teton for raft trips and that could also be a good area to cycle. So, there you could split a couple of days at Canyon, OF, and GT to minimize daily driving, but reach activities and sights.

Lake Louise is beautiful and you could use the old hotel as a base for the lake and the trail leading from there. For rafting we had to drive, but a shuttle is probably available. Maybe there is also transportation to the nearby ski resort for its summer activities. For us, a week just at that location would have been too long. We also spent a couple of days in Jasper (mountain biking) and Banff as the drive itself is beautiful and there are shorter hikes and sights along the way.