Dear readers, I hope you all have a great start to the new year. Happy New Year 2023! Wishing everyone joy, love, prosperity and peace. So how did you spend your New Years Eve? For most of us, spending quality time with family is the highlight that brings happiness and meaning to our lives. Some of us take winter break with our kids, some of us take time off at the end of the year, and some of us travel. Most of us, if not all of us, enjoy the holidays because it’s a time to give and celebrate. We love to travel and this post is about our winter vacation to Canada.
Our winter vacation coincides with the children’s winter vacation. My older child is in college and has 3 weeks off and my junior high schooler has 2 weeks off. I am an educator and also take 2 weeks off and my husband takes 5-7 days off. So we take a short vacation every winter and this one is one of the longest 10 day vacations! Read on for our winter travel experiences to Calgary, Canada.
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background
We consider ourselves travel lovers and try to travel twice a year. If you’ve been following my blog posts, you’ll remember that we traveled to Italy in the summer and visited Calgary, Canada for 3 days on the way. We celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary there with my sisters and family, and then celebrated our elders’ birthdays in Rome. If you are interested in going out on a travel experience, you can read these posts –
Italy Tour Part 1 with Italian Journey Part 2
Last summer 2021 we traveled to New York and Pittsburgh as a way to do campus tours when my oldest daughter starts college in the fall. In the winter of 2021, we traveled to San Francisco, California. 2020 was the year we didn’t travel due to the pandemic. In the summer of 2019, we traveled to India and 3 countries in Europe. We love visiting Switzerland, Austria and the Czech Republic, which is special since this is our first trip to Europe. Now that we’ve added Italy to the list, we’d love to visit other countries in Europe, but that might happen next summer, as we’re already planning to go to India, which will be 4 years later, the longest gap ever!
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To give you a background, we’ve been to Calgary 4 times. Our first trip was in the summer of 2013, then we went in the winter of 2015, and the next 2 were last year. We went for 3 days in June 2022 and 10 days in December. So read our short version of Canadian holiday travel in today’s post.
We fly on Christmas Day, December 25th. The flight from Houston, Texas to Calgary, Canada takes approximately 4 hours. We saved an hour when we went because Calgary is 1 hour behind PST in Pacific Standard Time. We started at 6pm, arrived at 9:30 and were home at 10:30. Calgary is not a big airport, especially compared to Houston. Calgary International Airport known as YYC It is the main international airport serving Calgary and Alberta, Canada. busiest airport in the region. YYC Airport It is a hub for Air Canada, Lynx and WestJet. calgary airport It is the fourth busiest airport in Canada, offering flights to North and Central America, Europe and Asia. IAH is Houston Airport, a hub for United Airlines. IAH, also known as Bush Intercontinental Airport, serves more Mexican destinations than any other U.S. airport. It is a hub for United Airlines and Bush Intercontinental serves more than 30 destinations in Mexico than any other U.S. airport. houston airport Named after George HW Bush, the 41st President of the United States. According to the last comparative statistics, YYC received 17,957,780 passengers in 2019, 5,675,483 Passengers and during COVID 2019 6,326,406Passengers for 2021 while IAH is registered 45,264,059 passengers in 2019, 24,690,222 passengers in 2020 and 33,677,118 passengers 2021.
Since it was late on Christmas Day, we had already exchanged presents at our home in Houston, so we had a cozy and cozy evening at my sister’s house. After dinner, the kids enjoyed hot chocolate under the Christmas tree and we went to bed just after midnight.
Calgary Attractions
You can read my previous post about the Calgary attractions we’re going to in the summer of 2022 in Jasper, Banff, Lake Louise, and Lake Morine. This time it was winter and we went to Waterton National Park, Lake Louise, Banff National Park and Edmonton to see the Northern Lights. The highlight of any winter trip to Canada is the Northern Lights and of course spending quality time with the family. The 4 cousins range in age from 7 to 19 and it’s a joy to watch them get along, play, explore and enjoy together. We didn’t ski this time, but it was really fun snowshoeing at Calgary Olympic Park. Snow tubing is one of the safest and most fun snow activities and is a must for us.
We went to Waterton National Park on 26th December and returned the next day. Read more here – https://parks.canada.ca/pn-np/ab/waterton. According to their official website, Alberta’s prairies meet the peaks of the Rocky Mountains in Waterton Lakes National Park. Crystal clear lakes, thundering waterfalls, iridescent streams, colorful rock formations and mountain vistas await hikers and sightseers. Waterton packs a huge force of nature into a relatively small and easily accessible area.
You need a pass to explore any of Canada’s national parks, and there are more than 10 of them! We also visited Banff National Park on this trip and Lake Louise was lovely even in the freezing cold. We loved the snowfall there and in Banff and took lots of photos along the frozen lake with snow covering the surrounding mountains and peaks.
We also visited Drumheller, a dinosaur town.according to drumheller.com Tyra, the world’s largest dinosaur, towers over the Drumheller Valley, offering visitors a unique and breathtaking view of the Badlands. Visitors can climb the 106 steps inside the dinosaur and experience the Drumheller Valley from Terra’s open jaw. Also saw stone forests, which are naturally eroded formations up to 20 feet high.
We explored downtown and watched the New Years fireworks at the Calgary Tower. The tower is 191 meters high and is the best view in the city. The Rocky Mountains, foothills, and prairie provide excellent views. We didn’t take the 360 view, but definitely another time.
Aside from daily excursions and excursions to nearby places, the highlight of the holidays is seeing the Northern Lights. We caught a glimpse of it on our first day in Banff, then downloaded the app and started chasing the Northern Lights. The KPI metrics tell that both clarity and probability of visibility must be high and cloud cover low. One night we headed to Edmonton for an inspection, nearly 3 hours each way. We had dinner at the Savoy restaurant and came back. We finally got a chance to see it on the last night before our 8am flight on January 4th, and we drove for a few hours to see it. Dance the Northern Lights! So honorable. We even see Steve – a straight line from the horizon to the sky. We enjoyed the show for about 30 minutes. It came and stopped, but the few minutes between when we could walk and see the spectacular Northern Lights were amazing! This was a once in a lifetime experience for us! Well worth the wait and time to go after it!
Summarize
To sum it up, we had a wonderful family winter vacation in Canada where we spent 10 days – 1 day of the longest winter trip ever. We visited Waterton National Park and Banff National Park as well as Lake Louise, Edmonton and Drumheller. Visiting my sister and family was a relaxing fun and enjoyable experience.
Dear reader, we’d love to hear from you. Have you been anywhere in Canada? How did you spend New Years Eve? Would you like to share your travel experience in 2012?
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