My newbie trip to Canada

I thought long and hard what content I would use to make my first official blog post. There are so many different topics that I enjoy chatting about from motherhood, horse ownership, pet lover, fitness passion, nutrition and the animal health world. But as I am starting this new year, I can’t help but reminisce about our trip to Banff, Canada last week. So Canada it is! 

As a little background, I have traveled to a lot of beautiful places. From growing up in Europe to cruising in the Caribbean and skiing in Montana. I have also seen many other states during my 12 years in animal health, but nothing compares to Banff. 

If you asked me 3 weeks ago where Banff was, I would have had no idea. In fact, my friend Christine suggested it when I was trying to find a place with guaranteed snow for the winter holiday. She is an avid national parks hopper and the Canadian Rockies are on her list of places to visit. If it wasn’t for Christine, I would have never found this place browsing online. So here’s my input on Banff in the blog below. I hope you enjoy my version of Canada as a German chic who has been in Florida for 25 years 😝

Travel to Banff – surprisingly, we found a direct flight from Orlando to Calgary. One thing I do in the winter months is try to always fly direct and avoid possible delays and cancellations. So LynxAir was my budget friendly option where up front seating with leg room and a checked bag ran us $940 for 2 people, round trip. Score! 

Please note that LynxAir is budget conscious flying adventure. No snacks, no outlets, no WiFi,  water offered twice in 6 hours . Come prepared. BYOsnacks and charge your devices. If you have those expectations and aren’t expecting a bougie fly club experience, you’ll be set! 

Car rental – if you are a control freak and don’t like other people driving (that includes shuttles and buses), I strongly suggest getting a car. We rented our mid sized Ford Escape for less than $52/day and it was the perfect little SUV to get us around comfortably. For reference, I’m just south of 6ft and my boyfriend is 6’5! 

Lodging – I think it’s important to plan your lodging based on the activities that you plan on doing. We knew we wanted to see Lake Luise, go to Golden, B.C to snowmobile and explore downtown Banff. Canmore was the middle point between the Calgary airport and the other destinations, so that is where we got our AirBnB. It was $120/day and super cute! We were really only in it for 9 hours at night, so although it was a small 1 bedroom condo, it was perfect for us. I also enjoyed getting out of the touristy area of Banff and Lake Luise and enjoy the quaint town of Canmore. 

Activities – this was one thing that I booked right after our flights and car. I would suggest doing a lower key adventure the day after you get there and the day before you leave. Then you aren’t so rushed and tired. The mountains kick your butt! We booked our all day snowmobile  adventure on a Thursday. For reference, we got there on a Tuesday evening and left on Saturday. So Thursday worked really well. 

We also booked a star gazing night tour on the last night, which worked out so perfectly as there was no cloud in the sky! I have never seen so many stars in my whole life. Getting away from light pollution and exploring nature was definitely the way to go. 

Currency – I always like to travel with a credit card, debit card and cash. I had no clue there were even Canadian dollars until I booked my trip! So off to the bank I went and requested some money just to have in case of a cash only place that doesn’t accept $US or plastic.  One thing I would have changed was having more cash if I could do it over again. Tipping the guides, paying for meals and airport shuttle was easier that way. And currently, the US Dollar is stronger so $140 US got me $190 Canadian Dollars! Winner Winner!  (Note, give your bank at least 5 business days to get the currency in. They don’t often have it in stock at the bank) 

This is also a great reminder to make sure to let your credit card companies know that you are traveling internationally. That way you don’t get fraud charge alerts and your card temporarily blocked.

Weather – Forecast was a low of 15°F and a high of around 25°F. Seeing as it never gets that cold in good ole Florida, we quickly went ham on Amazon. I highly suggest the “try before you buy” feature. I went through 6 pairs of boots until my big feet were happy and comfortable. One thing I will always buy at a store though is under layers and coats. Our go to under layer place is Under Armour. I had gotten some knock offs on Amazon for thermal packs and we quickly realized that you get what you pay for (wasn’t as moisture wicking). So UA for under layers and Columbia for coats. Best combo and you just layer in between 😀

Understanding the culture – I think it’s important to always research the culture and area you are going to visit. I knew that Canadians were really big into nature, preserving and respecting the land. And the people there were all super friendly. This may seem like a no brainer but there are a lot of cultures where you would be considered super rude if you don’t respect their rules etc (I.e, in Germany, if you don’t recycle properly, or take your shoes off at the door, you will get your butt reamed out by the home owner etc).  So just remember checking out some common courtesies before frolicking into a foreign land. 

Phone service – unless you’re ready to completely unplug and not be available, it would be advantageous to check with your phone carrier and see what an international charges plan would cost. Luckily, for my Verizon plan, Canada was included for all data so I could continue to use my phone as usual. The last thing you want to do is come back from a great vacation and have a massive phone bill. 

If you do not want to pay for an international plan, or it is not covered by your phone service, you could always go into airplane mode and then just use Wi-Fi whenever available. Obviously, be cautious of using public Wi-Fi when you’re logging into your bank or anything like that. But for regular browsing, I felt comfortable logging into a public Wi-Fi. (I.E Starbucks, restaurants etc) 

That pretty much sums up my intro to Canada adventure! I hope you enjoyed reading this tidbit and come back to this blog to see what the next post may be about. 

Until then, thank you for visiting and toodles 👋🏼