Banff is the sort of scenic mountain town that you might find in Colorado, USA. Big mountains, trees, rivers, lots of tourist appeal, hiking and activities to attract visitors in every season of the year. The real appeal of Banff is not the town of Banff – it’s everything outside of it. For some reason all of us tourists flock there because it gets a lot of the attention for the beauty of Alberta that surrounds it. Banff is just another hyped up touristy mountain town. Skip it if you can and enjoy all the cool stuff outside of it.
There are so many hikes to do all over the place offering different views and panoramic landscapes. Morraine Lake and Mirror Lake are both famous places to see but there are some logistical stress that comes with visiting them. The national park service disallows parking or vehicle traffic to manage load, so you need to purchase ticketed reservations. The time slots sell out immediately (as within 10 seconds of them becoming available online during high season). But what you can do is rent a bike or ebike (electrical bike) and ride 9 kilometers from the rental shop to the lakes if you don’t want to deal with the hassle of paying the government to see a lake.
I suppose this post really should be about Alberta, Canada because that’s more of what impressed me about my short few Days there than the town of Banff. The Province of Alberta is just too large for me to visit it for a few days and then say I went to “Alberta.” I still have it on my travel queue to visit Edmonton, Alberta too, which is just about two hours north of Calgary. Maybe that would be another good Canadian destination the next time I am north of the USA.
I did a few hikes outside of Banff which were beautiful and also challenging; as I remember work was busy and a little stressful, but the natural beauty sure helped to basline me into a chill calm whenever I stepped away from the computer.
