We provide a detailed itinerary based on our knowledge of the parks, but the itinerary is easily adjustable if you are visiting for fewer days or need to rearrange days.
You can’t fail with our easy-to-follow instructions. We include destinations, arrival times, and many maps and images to keep you on course. We’ll help you with parking and the best ways to get around
these stunning parks!
We’ll get you to the best views - the most popular and some hidden gems - to enjoy the towering Canadian Rockies.
Drive the Icefields Parkway with confidence, knowing you’ll see the best of this glacier-filled valley, one of the most scenic drives in the world!
Dine at the BEST places with our restaurant recommendations. We tell you when to eat out and when to pack a picnic for those times when you’re venturing away from civilization.
Getting to Lake Louise and Moraine Lake can be COMPLICATED. Make your shuttle or bus reservations with ease with our easy-to-follow plan.
Real human customer service. We’ll respond to emails within one business day- no AI or auto-generated responses.
If you travel using our guides and don’t love them so much that you would tell your best friend about us, we’ll give you your money back. Read more.
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Hey, We’re Matt and Cheryl and we are on a mission to help people have amazing vacations. Not only do we write easy-to-follow itineraries, but we love to share interesting stories in our audio guides about all of our favorite places!
We live in Utah, just four hours away from awesome national parks like Zion and Yellowstone, and have spent our lives exploring the West and the Rocky Mountains. We often travel with both sets of our retired parents (they like each other!) and our four teenagers (who like to travel…sometimes).
We met in a history of Utah class at Weber State University and tied the knot in 2002. Matt worked for Social Security and taught adjunct history classes at our alma mater. Cheryl taught special education for 28 years and continues to volunteer by teaching a weekly dance fitness class.
We took a shot at our dream in 2020 and started making YouTube videos about the national parks we know so well. We now have over 20 million views and have sold over 24,000 guides. We are delighted to help travelers fulfill dreams of their own!
We love trying out all the activities and working with local experts to give the best, most up-to-date travel advice out there.
At We're in the Rockies, we believe in education and donate 5% of the proceeds of your purchase to the Gene Sessions History Scholarship to make education affordable to future park rangers and history teachers.
Watch Cheryl show you how to plan out your travel day in minutes.
We believe you need at least three days to see Banff.
You can see a good portion of Jasper in one day.
If you are connecting the 2 parks, you will want to allot a full day to do the Icefield Parkway.
If you have extra time, explore Calgary, Kootenay, Yoho, and even Edmonton.
We recommend you stay within Banff or Canmore to visit Banff National Park. You can rearrange the days in any order you wish but one day is for the Icefield Parkway and works well as a transition to Jasper.
If visiting Jasper, we recommend you switch locations and stay in Jasper.
Locals agree September is the magical month to visit!
Keep in mind that Banff will be crowded throughout the summer months. This is an international destination and you’ll share the popular sites with thousands.
Try to think of it as a movie premier and feel the energy in the air.
Jasper, on the other hand, is remote and a welcome relief from the crowds.
We are Americans and most of our guide writing experience is from writing about the national parks in the West.
To create this guide, we worked with Mountain Town Ramblers, Kyle Harvey and Theresa Hurst. They live in Canada and visit the mountain towns often. We used their expertise on Banff and Jasper and our guide writing skills to bring you this guide.
We recommend what we believe are the absolute best spots in the parks and give back up options for longer hikes or things that cost.
We give star ratings and approximate prices to help you decide which activities are the best value for you!
We are of the mindset that you have a plan so you can be flexible.
We lay out what we believe are the best activities for your time and money, but we all have different preferences.
Because each activity listed has a star rating, approximate time frame, and cost, you’ll easily be able to adjust to best suit your group’s interests.
We surveyed our customers and they reported that our guides saved them 10-20 hours of trip planning research, on average.
Although much of the information included in these guides can be found with significant research, these guides combine what you need to know into one place and they are from a source committed to giving you the best information.
These guides cost us over $18,884 to create when you combine travel expenses, consulting, map creation, and formatting. In addition, we have spent hundreds of hours visiting these parks and doing additional research.
If you are only visiting Banff and/or Jasper, these are the only guides you need. If you are also interested in visiting Glacier & Waterton National Parks, we recommend the Canadian Rockies Bundle. It will give you full itineraries for all the parks plus an audio guide for Glacier and Waterton and also includes an Overview that shows you the most efficient way to see them together and the best routes depending on which airport or direction you are coming from. Plus, it’s cheaper than if you were to buy each of the guides individually. If you are doing an even bigger trip, just email us at mattandcheryl@wereintherockies.com and tell us where you want to go. A real human will email you back within one business day.
Many of our travelers enjoy the confirmation that they have already created a good plan and may even find a thing or two to add to it.
Other travelers may find that our plan is similar to what they had already pieced together on their own.
If you’ve already spent hours planning, you may not find maximum value in these guides.
Yes! We travel with our 4 children and both sets of our parents. Although not every activity is for everyone, there are always backup suggestions.
We write these guides so all the work you should need to do is obtain your lodging and reservations. We include maps, the time needed to complete drives and activities, and lodging recommendations. We put boxes throughout the guides indicating it’s an item that you will need to take care of before you leave. We also give links to websites we think you should check before your leave.
Banff has a very robust mass transit system. The ROAM buses can get you pretty much everywhere you wish to go. In addition, Parks Canada offers a Park and Ride Shuttle to Lake Louise and Moraine Lake.
You will need a car to visit Jasper.
The roads are paved in both parks.
Yes. We give approximate time frames that are needed to complete an activity. The schedule is generally not so packed that you have to be a quick traveler. But, if you know you generally need more time, you can make adjustments. If you are quick, there are suggestions for additional activities
These are digital downloads that will be EMAILED to you. That way you can have access immediately and have the option to download it to any device you want.
Many travelers, including us, prefer to print the itinerary and take it with us as we travel.
The itinerary are available immediately upon purchase, right on this webpage. You will also receive an email within 30 minutes with download links in case you need to revisit the links and download the items later. If you don’t receive your email, check your junk mail folder. If it’s not there, contact mattandcheryl@wereintherockies.com and we’ll be in touch with you within 1 business day. Also, the guides will be available in your account, if you choose to establish one (we highly encourage it).
National parks constantly change, including timed-entry requirements, construction, fires, and closures. To keep you updated on the most current things going on, we have a Parks Updates page that we update every week with important information. We recommend you look at this as soon as you begin planning your trip, as well as a few days before you leave.
Guides are automatically updated to the latest version when you create an account.
In addition to that, we also send an email notification out when a guide is updated. Just make sure to stay subscribed to our email list so we can reach you.
Because the download is a PDF file, you can do it on any device: computer, iPhone, Android, tablet, etc.
Stuff like this happens. We get it.
If you created an account, just log in again and download your guides.
If you didn’t create an account or forgot your password, just email us and we can resend your links.
For step-by-step instructions (including pictures) check out our Help With Downloads page.
If you still need help, reach out to us at mattandcheryl@wereintherockies.com We’ll get back to you as soon as possible to help. We’re even happy to jump on a phone call with you if needed.
This guide is meant to be used June through October (September for Jasper).
Visiting in the winter is a completely different experience and is not covered in these guides.
Yes!! We update our guides as needed, but write the concepts to intentionally be as timeless as possible. We encourage you to purchase the guide as soon as you know you will be traveling. It will help you determine which areas to stay and how many days to obtain lodging. Upon purchase, you’ll be guided to create an account on our website. If we update the guide, it will automatically show in your account and you have free updates for life.
It is not required but is HIGHLY recommended. We encourage you to create an account when purchasing the guides because you’ll have access to the links at any time.
You will have access to the updated guide through your account (another reason to create an account) for life. We generally send an email announcement when we do an update as well.
We believe that once you buy a guide from us, you should be able to use it to visit a 2nd, 3rd, or 4th time.
If you created an account, just log in and download your guide again.
If you didn’t create an account, just email mattandcheryl@wereintherockies.com and let us know you want us to resend your guide links.
We put approximate price ranges on all our activities so you know what to expect. Although we believe that the lodging in Banff and Jasper is expensive, there are plenty of free or inexpensive things to do within the parks.
Although we do suggest some hikes, we offer plenty of alternatives if hiking is not desirable including viewpoints and drives.
| 5 star | 95% | |
| 4 star | 5% | |
| 3 star | 0% | |
| 2 star | 0% | |
| 1 star | 0% |
$70.00
I am 64 years old, traveling with my wife and will be in the Alberta region for 13 full days. I would like an organized itinerary for the Alberta region: Banff, emerald lake, Jasper, Edmonton and ending in Calgary. One note: I don’t practice hicking. Would it be possible to prepare an itinerary for us??.
Our travel will be in September
Thanks for reaching out. At this time, we don’t do personal itineraries but our Banff and Jasper guides offer some great things to do in those parks. Our Banff guide also offers some suggestions on things to do in Kananaskis, Kootenay, Yoho, Canmore, and Calgary as well.
We love watching “We’re in the Rockies ” on YouTube. They give good advice and are practical. We went to Banff and Jasper in September. We ordered the guides from them and they were so helpful. They had information on booking tours, what was best for money and time, and when to visit different areas. Getting around in a new place and figuring out what and when to do things can be overwhelming, so they were a great help. Lots of good information.
I’ve bought these guides before and this is the second one I bought. I went to Banff in June 2023 and this was a great and up to date guide. Every single thing that is important to see is listed. And then if you’re on a time crunch, there’s alternatives offered as well! Wherever my next national park trip is, I will for sure be using a We’re in The Rockies guide!
This is a wonderful guide full of tips. It has made our trip easier to plan and helped us to determine what we Must see! Thank you
Your guides are amazing! I brought it with me on my trip and my family kept asking if they could barrow it to read up on the items I had on my itinerary. I went to Banff two years ago and I loved it so much that I am going back again and I am adding Jasper to our trip. So thank you for the updated guide! Can’t wait to put it to good use again. I am the “travel guide” to my senior citizen family members and I appreciate how descriptive you are about the hikes and activities, to have an understanding of what is doable for some and maybe not doable for others.
Four years ago my daughter and I planned a trip to Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons. We like to hike, but besides Old Faithful we knew nothing of the area or even the state we were to travel. Since I was the trip planner I spent hours upon hours hunting through various internet sites for places to visit, best hikes to try, and economical places to stay. We had a memorable and wonderful trip, but working full-time puts time restraints on the amount of research one can fit in.
Fast forward another year and I discovered this blog called We’re In the Rockies. My daughter and I were planning another trip, but this time to the Badlands, Mount Rushmore, and then to the Rocky Mountains. I was more than overwhelmed by the amount of hikes and national treasures available and didn’t know where to start. I purchased We’re in the Rockies itineraries for those areas. What a helpful resource!! Although we didn’t use all the suggestions or places of interest mentioned, we narrowed our destinations and concentrated on the areas outlined in the itinerary. We now had best places to stay, exciting hikes to attempt, and very necessary helps to arrange before attempting the national parks (ie making sure you reserved a timed pass when entering the Rocky Mountain National Park). We didn’t feel pressured by their itinerary to accomplish all that was mentioned, but used the guide as a frame work. Of course, if you wanted to do it all, the plan gave you specific places to visit each day and flexibility if your time was shorter.
Last week, we just returned from Banff National Park in Canada. This was a place I had never heard of before, but after reading the We’re in the Rockies email, sent out last year, I knew this would be a bucket place destination. Of all the places, so far visited, my daughter and I were stunned by the majestic beauty. Each hike was met by sapphire colored lakes, waterfalls, or mountain ranges that even our pictures were able to capture. Again, I read over the pre-trip necessities including timed reserved shuttle tickets needed to enter Lake Louise. One day we saw a sign that mentioned the tickets were sold out for the shuttles, but we had ours thankfully reserved. We initially flew into and toured Calgary, stayed partially in Canmore, and made sure we visited and hiked on various trails on our way to visit the Colombian Ice Field Adventure. All were stated in the itinerary we had purchased and were added suggestions that made our trip less expensive and more complete.
I will continue to use We’re in the Rockies itineraries. They have proven their worth in the planning time they have spared me, money they have saved me, but best of all seeing places that I would have been intimidated taking on or even knowing their existence. Thank you so much for the hard work in compiling these worthwhile itineraries.
The guides were awesome. I travel with multi-gernerational family and the guides had helpful hints for all ages. The pictures and experienced based information was so helpful when planning. The lessons learned on timeliness, alternatives ticket buying was so detailed with facts supported. I loved everything ❤️
GREAT GUIDE!!!! Told us everything we needed to know. Thanks guys. Keep up the great work!