Calgary Vacations

Calgary Travel Guide

Plan your trip to Calgary

Banff National Park, just an hour west of Calgary in the Rockies, might be Canada’s most enjoyable place to be. The things to do in Calgary’s mountainous backyard range from winter skiing and hot-spring hopping in the winter, to swimming in Lake Louise during Canada’s summer months, to experiencing frontier Canada in Canmore on the park’s eastern edge. But as much fun as Banff is, it doesn't come close to the city of Calgary itself.

“The Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth”
Calgary’s big draw is the Calgary Stampede, a yearly summer festival that routinely attracts over a million revellers to Canada’s biggest party. The rodeo used to be the event’s star attraction, but it’s modernised over time to become a weeklong party. The rest of the year is just as exciting. Downtown, in and around the Calgary Tower, visitors will find no shortage of bars, restaurants and quality shopping, and when the Calgary Flames, the city’s ice hockey team has a home match, the city goes bonkers.
Kid- friendly fun
Families visiting Calgary have just as many exciting options, but most Calgary tourism experts would agree that the best of the bunch are Glenbow Museum and the Calgary Zoo. The huge Glenbow Museum in the centre of Calgary houses impressive collections of art, ethnology, military history, mineralogy and cultural history. It’s open all year-round, except on Mondays, and is free for children aged six and under. The zoo is also open year-round and gives youngsters the chance to get up close and personal with giraffes, bears, hippos and gorillas. It’s the second-largest zoo in Canada, and is home to around 800 species of animals.