This experience covered just under 5000km from Vancouver to Jasper, Banff, down to Seattle & back in August. Wildfires were a daily issues with road closures changing intended routes a few times, but, travel is like that, nature is unpredictable.
So the basics, Canada drives on the left hand side of the road, almost all metro area are 50kph, School & play zones are 30kph, most highways are only 80kph, and the Trans Canada Highway is mostly 100/110kph.
I picked up a rental car through Europcar, and was greeted with an upgrade to a Ford Edge Titanium, a medium sized comfortable SUV. Rentals from the airport included insurance, metro rentals did not, but some metro car rental companies offered insurance as an option from around C$34 a day, really quite expensive compared to the UK & Europe.
Road conditions were better than expected. I had thought that snow, ice & winters would have a severe effect on the tarmacs, but instead found it mostly smooth with good passing opportunities.
As a biker, many of the roads were begging for a cruise, the Sea to Sky Highway north from Vancouver in particular, long sweeping bends with fabulous vistas over waters with stunning mountain backdrops. Ah well, something to add to the bucketlist.
As I had done in Europe, I brought by Tomtom GPS, preloaded with Canada maps, and pre-set waypoints for where I would be staying & where I wanted to stop and look around.
I also brought my smartphone dashcam mount, so my Samsung was able to take photos & video while driving.
Canada is famous for being polite, and that was also experienced while driving. Others let you in when merging, most gave ample following distance unless preparing to overtake, and even parking had experiences of other letting you in rather than trying to snavel a space.
There is a general tendency for drivers to speed up to 10% over the posted limit, except in built up areas and school & play zones where even 1kph over will see you fined. I am not saying you should or can speed, just the observation that if you are doing 100kph on a highway posted as 100kph, you will be overtaken often.
The landscape changes often, and as I approached Alberta from British Columbia, the mountain ranges heading into those national parks took on a whole new level of stunning. BC & Alberta appear to be havens for large RV’s (camper homes). Parks often have dedicated allocations for these larger vehicles.
Albeit this was an unprecedented season of wildfires, I would happily plan further driving or riding travel through this area, and would hope to explore central & eastern Canada in time to come.
