Vancouver Tours &Vacation Packages

Four days is the minimum, and it covers the core — Banff, Lake Louise, Jasper, Yoho and the Columbia Icefield. Vancouver sits about 850 km from Banff, so the first and last days of any route are largely driving across the interior through Kamloops. Five days and up keep the same parks but slow the pace, or add coastal days in Victoria, Whistler and Vancouver, with Seattle at one end on the longest routes.

About 850 km, or roughly nine to ten hours of driving on Highway 1 through the Fraser Canyon and Kamloops. Banff has no airport; the nearest is Calgary, about 130 km to the east. Coach tours from Vancouver break the drive with an overnight on the way out — the tour page lists where — which is why four days is the shortest workable route.

June to September is the main season: the Icefields Parkway is clear, the glacier activities run, and the lakes have thawed to their full colour. Lake Louise and Moraine Lake stay frozen into late spring, so an early-June trip may not look like the photographs. Winter tours run to Banff with snow-covered valleys and lower prices; which lakes and glacier stops are included varies by route, so check the itinerary.

Coach tours cover more ground for substantially less. Rail routes replace one leg with a train. The VIA Rail route runs overnight and ends at Calgary airport rather than returning to Vancouver, so check it against your flights. The Rocky Mountaineer travels in daylight in glass-domed cars and reaches Banff, where the tour continues by coach. Take rail if the journey is the point, coach if the parks are.

Vancouver if you want the coast as well as the mountains, Calgary if you want the shortest route to Banff. Calgary sits about 130 km from the park against 850 km from Vancouver, so a Calgary start puts you in the mountains the same day. Vancouver adds two travel days but opens up Victoria, Whistler and the Sea-to-Sky Highway. Some routes start in one city and end in the other.

A field of ice of roughly 230 square kilometres on the Banff–Jasper boundary, the largest in the Rocky Mountains. Tours stop at the Athabasca Glacier, one of its outflows, where specialised snowcoaches drive onto the ice. The Glacier Skywalk nearby is a glass-floored platform over the Sunwapta Valley. Both operate in the warmer months only. The stop sits on the Icefields Parkway, the road between Lake Louise and Jasper.

Whistler is 120 km north on the Sea-to-Sky Highway, about two hours, past Howe Sound and Shannon Falls. Victoria means a ferry crossing to Vancouver Island, with the fare included, usually paired with Butchart Gardens — a long day out. In the city, Stanley Park, Granville Island, Gastown, Capilano Suspension Bridge and Grouse Mountain can be combined into one tour. Day trips do not reach the Rockies.

Banff is the busiest and closest to Calgary, with the town, Lake Louise and Moraine Lake. Jasper is 290 km north along the Icefields Parkway, larger and quieter, with Maligne Lake and Athabasca Falls. Yoho sits west across the Continental Divide in British Columbia, the smallest of the three, with Emerald Lake and the Natural Bridge. Tours from Vancouver enter through Yoho, because it comes first on the road.