Banff National Park is Canada’s oldest national park and is located in the gorgeous Canadian Rockies in Western Canada. It’s a popular destination for good reason, whether you visit in the summer to see the stunning teal blue of the glacier-fed lakes, or in the winter for skiing and other winter sports. Here are some tips to help get you started when planning a visit to Banff, and make sure you check out my other Banff posts for more details on visiting the stunning Moraine Lake, the best time to explore Lake Louise, and all the best places to eat in Banff. You can’t go wrong visiting this incredible place!

• How to get here:
  • Fly into Calgary International Airport (YYC), and get a rental car from there to finish your journey to Banff. It’s about a 1.5 hour drive from Calgary to Banff, making it by far the closest major airport, and the drive is so gorgeous that it’ll go by fast!
  • There are also options to take a bus from Calgary to Banff, like this one, but I highly recommend renting a car since you’ll need one to fully experience all of the different lakes, beautiful drives, and hikes that Banff has to offer.
• Where to stay:
  • For convenience of visiting all that Banff National Park has to offer, I recommend staying in either the town of Banff or Canmore.
  • The town of Banff itself is adorable, with a fun downtown area to explore and lots of good restaurants, and is a easy drive to most of the popular lakes and hiking sites from here.
  • Canmore is about a 15 minute drive from downtown Banff, and it can be a more affordable location to stay in, and still has grocery stores, a nice downtown area, and plenty of dining options.

• Plan ahead! 
  • Banff is a very popular summer destination, so planning as far in advance as you can is important! The glacial lakes, like Lake Louise and Moraine Lake, typically do not fully thaw and take on their beautiful teal color until about mid-June, so if you’re like me, you’ll want to visit between mid-June and early September to see them at their best.
  • Hotels, Airbnbs, and campsites book up quickly (especially the more affordable options!) so planning ahead is a must. With that being said, this past summer, I found a great deal on directs flights from Nashville to Calgary on WestJet, so I ended up booking our trip only about six weeks in advance! We ended up staying in a camper in Canmore that I found on Airbnb, which was fine, but we probably could have gotten a hotel for about the same price if we’d booked six months plus in advance!

• Go early or go late to the most popular sites! 
  • Visiting Banff in the summer means that it will be busy, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but means that you need to be strategic about when you visit the most popular lakes. Lakes like Moraine Lake and Lake Louise have limited parking, and once the parking lots are full, no more visitors will be allowed in until others leave.
  • Going first thing in the morning (i.e., before 7 or 7:30am) allows you to practically have the lake to yourself, perfect for soaking it all in and taking all the photos you want.
  • The sun sets quite late in Banff during the summer, at times as late as 10 or 10:30pm, so you can still enjoy several hours of daylight by visiting the more popular lakes in the evening. By mid-evening, Lake Louise and Moraine Lake are much quieter and are perfect for exploring on your own.

• Drive the Icefields Parkway 
  • A trip to Banff is not complete without a day spent driving the famous Icefields Parkway, a highway that connects Banff National Park to Jasper National Park. It’s considered one of the most beautiful drives in North America (if not the whole world!) and it’s just something you need to experience for yourself.
  • Plan a day to just drive this gorgeous route, and know that you’ll be pulling over frequently to take in the sights, like Bow Lake and Bow Summit, which overlooks the stunning teal blue Peyto Lake.

Have you been to Banff National Park yet, or is it on your bucket list, like it was for my husband and I? I can’t say enough how incredible it was and how highly I recommend visiting! Banff is honestly one of my favorite places in the world now, and I can’t wait to go back again! What would you like to see on the blog next? Let me know in the comments!