The Travel Diaries | Banff with a Baby

I wanted to share with you some of our travel diaries because since I have started vlogging more and more I realise how much I love being able to look back on all the amazing things we have done as a family and I didn’t really ever get round to putting many words down while we were traveling. I also didn’t vlog back then which is such a shame. I hope you don’t mind these little travel updates here and there, hopefully if anyone is looking to visit any of the places we have been to it will help serve as a guide!

Well, without further ado…

My heart smiled as I woke up to the sun rising over the Canadian Rockies. We are so fortunate to be here, I thought. We did it.

The decision to take our baby, Henry, traveling didn’t come easily. All sorts of worries and concerns consumed us, but having traveled the world both solo and on honeymoon with Stu, we knew that the process of actually traveling wasn’t as daunting a task as when you’re actually there, living it.

As we drove in from Calgary, I frantically took photos, each corner we turned the view better than the last. Little did I know what laid ahead of us. We had picked up our hire car at Calgary airport where we’d flown into from Chicago and after spending 2 hours trying to sort out and fit the car seat we had rented we were finally on our way. The drive was less than 2 hours including my constant requests for Stuart to stop so I could take more photos! As we got closer the scenery got even more stunning and the mountains grew to tower over us.

We couldn’t believe our eyes when we drove into Banff, pure beauty. Picture perfect. We arrived in April and the weather was just turning a corner from the bitter winter. The snow was melting, but we were there just in time to see the last of it. It was perfect.

Banff itself is a beautiful little town. It’s pretty small which is part of its charm. Because of the time of year and that ski season was probably coming to an end, it wasn’t particularly busy, which was good for us. I expect during high season it gets very busy with tourists and skiers alike. Personally I think we visited at the very best time. It wasn’t uncomfortably cold as we had braved ourselves for, but the snow was still around, helping the beautiful scenery live up to our expectations. Everything was walking distance and easily accessible within the town, although we did need the car to go off venturing up to the mountains.

Not too sure what this pose was all about, I think I was excited that they had upgraded our car for us. Luckily so too because we just managed to escape quite a bad snow storm on our way back to Calgary. The wheels on the cars were huge on most vehicles out there, totally different to our little cars in the UK. They know how to get about in bad weather!

We ventured out from Banff the short distance to Lake Louise, a beautiful lake renowned for it’s majestic views, mountains alive with wildlife and rich in activities for families and couples alike including hiking and walking, gondola rides, tubing, skating, rafting & canoeing, and biking. The day we visited the lake was still fully frozen over, a sharp contrast to the mirrored water which glistens throughout summer.  It was so bright and the sun reflected so greatly off of the pure white snow we found it hard to stay outside for much time, especially for little Henry who spent the whole time sneezing!!

We had the most brilliant time visiting Banff and I feel so fortunate to have seen so much natural beauty, and not get eaten by a bear. That’s always a bonus.

I hope you like reading these kind of posts. Travel is a huge passion of mine and I love sharing these memories and being able to look back on them. Looking forward to sharing more adventures.

XOXO