A vehicle hire question for those who have travelled to Canada

Brian

My wife and I travelled to Vancouver in June 2007. Spent 5 days in Vancouver before we hired a car and travelled north to Whistler, Kamloops, Jasper, Baniff, Revelstoke, Kelowna and back to Vancouver, all in 8 days. As we never considered a motorhome, did not look out for places to stay with a motorhome. That said, there was no shortage of motorhomes on the road.

If I was doing the trip again, we would still go by car and stay in hotels. It just provided the extra flexibility. Happy to chat anything 03 9390 1171

Peter and Jan

G'day Brian,

We just returned from 38 days in canada but only on organised tours including your section in the west. Then flew to the east to do that section as well seeing as we were over there.
If you go ahead with your plans you will be in peak season and the amount of motorhomes we saw in the season tail end was daunting to say the least.
Sorry not to answer your question but aren't you doubling up on your west coast tours? At the same time I agree doing your own thing is the best way to go as we found the pace on the organized tours to fast to appreciate the country.
Sure you will enjoy whichever way you go.

regards graham and carol

We are going April/May for 6 weeks and have now booked a hire car for 31 days.

We have booked hotel in vancouver for 4 nights at start and end of trip with car for travel after leaving vancouver. Then we intend to take our chances finding motels on the way. We have booked Columbia Icefields to ensure we don't miss out.

Research showed that roads are parallel to rail so saved lots of $ by not going on the rail so that we can stop when we want to and remain flexible in regards to weather.

Our trip is just the roads around BC , Al and a quick dash out to Saskatchewhan to visit a friend.

Our trip should be before the peak season so you may have to take peak season into account.

Alan

Sound like a few BOG members travel to Canada & Alaska.
We will leave Au on 8th May and return on 20th June.
We will be doing the 11 day Rocky Mountaineer Grand Circle trip then a 20 day cruise up to Seward before changing the Coach, train and boats to go to Anchorage, Fairbanks, Deneli NP, over to Tok all in Alaska before crossing into Canada and going down the Yukon River to Dawson City and then to Whitehorse where we fly back to Vancouver. I have looked at lots of street view photos on Google earth and it looks very impressive and scenic country.

From Vancouver we plan to then drive back up into the mountains and see places in more detail that the train or coach on the Rocky Mountaineer trip drove past.

Comfort wise a car and hotel or other accom might be better than a motorhome.

The East Coast of Canada and USA will be another trip.

Brian

I look at the Travel section in Saturday's paper every week and with the strong Aussie dollar there are some bargains around.

One thing is stopping me and I know it's a personal failing: I can't come to terms with sitting in a germ capsule for between 12 and 24 hours to get to these destinations. Every time someone sneezes I cover my mouth and nose with a handkerchief. I wish they did.

I think this phobia got worse when we went to China a couple of years ago and had to put up with the constant spitting. Bloody disgusting.

Oh well, seeing Oz in a BT is good too.

In 08 we spent 3 months travelling Canada and the US on our motorcycles. As we had to travel light and because we did not know how far we would get each day, we did not organise accommodation. We camped and stayed @ what they call Ma & Pa motels. Canada can be expensive but the US is very reasonable.
One place I would strongly recommend as it is not far from Vancouver is visit Mt St Helens in Washington State. It is hard to imagine 3000 feet of mountain dissapearing in one blast and there is plenty of the distruction still evident. Make sure you watch the film @ the observation centre as the end will surprise you. Also on the way there or the way back do a loop thru Mt Rainier National Park.
John