Our Best of 2022- RV Campgrounds in Western Canada.

Happy New Year everyone. Happy New Year. I hope you all had a great New Year and I hope you had a wonderful holiday season. Yeah, we had a nice break. The weather's now, it's back, winter's left us hopefully for the rest of the season. It's our usual eight degrees raining, kind of gloomy though, but it's the weather that we're used to in the winter here. We had a nice break over Christmas. We didn't do too much, you know, the break itself was nice. I know some people at this time of year get really caught up with their pets and do all sorts of fun things. You know, we didn't do that. We didn't have Finch all dressed up or anything along that line. And we don't usually put faces of our pets on our clothing or anything like that. Or on card sets. But yeah, this year we can thank a couple of our friends, Mike and Jane, for those little reminders of how some people really get caught up with their pets. Pet crazy. So this year we thought we'd change, if you've watched our channel before, you know at this time of year we usually do our sort of five top campgrounds for the year. And this year we thought we'd change it up a little. And in part because this year we didn't go to a lot of new campgrounds, a few, but a lot of them we went back to were some of the some we'd been to before. And in some cases they're ones we'd gone to before, but it only had a chance to spend a day or two. So this time we went back and in some cases spent several days there, which was which was really nice. So we got to explore and enjoy some of them a little bit more. So we thought we'd change it up a little this year and talk a little bit about kind of our five favorite campgrounds that we went to, but with a different focus. Yeah, so this time we thought we would, instead of ranking it from number five to number one and just doing a top five, we thought we'd just pick five of our favorites and talk about the best features for each one. And then we'll let you know which one we like the best overall. So let's get started. And one thing we should note too, and Mickey and I were just talking about this a few minutes ago, we recognize that, you know, campgrounds are somewhat reflective of what we like to do when we're there. And also the weather. I mean, we've been in some places when the weather's been horrible and in other times when the weather's great. And of course, it really changes the whole experience. So we'll let you know what the categories we decided on were. First one is best for biking and boating. The second is best for access to hiking trails. The third is best individual campsites. So we actually enjoyed the campsite the best. The fourth is best for off-season services. And finally, we picked one that we liked best overall. So I hope you enjoy. And I'm sure, what's the expression? Your mileage may vary. Okay, so best for biking and boating. We decided to go with Kekuli Bay Provincial Park. And Kekuli Bay is in the Okanagan between Kelowna and Vernon on Highway 97. The campground itself has beautiful terraced sites. And most of them we noted did have nice lake views. Yeah, the majority. And I should say, despite this being in the category of biking and boating, we did neither while we were there. We were only there for a short period. But it certainly looked like a great place to go biking. And for boating, we often really describe that more as paddling. Though in this particular case, you could boat because there's a great boat launch as well. Yeah, you can take motorized boats. Or you can, if you're like us, and you like non-motorized boats, you could kayak or canoe. It's a beautiful lake. Yeah, and I think that the biggest attraction really there is just the access to the Okanagan Rail Trail, which is the biking trail. And I think you can go a long way. Yeah, it's supposed to be 52 kilometers long. But unfortunately, I think there's one section, maybe about seven kilometers, which is between the border of Lake Country and Kelowna and the Kelowna International Airport that's actually closed. And I guess they have some plans to eventually finish it off. But there's not really any good access between those two points. So if you're at Kukuli Bay, then you're going to just be able to get down to the border to Kelowna from Lake Country. One other thing to note about the Okanagan Rail Trail is you are required to use non-motorized modes of transport. So you can walk, hike, bike. I think the exception is motorized wheelchairs and mobility aids, and also electric bikes. The other things to note about this camp ground, most of the sites look very private and very nice roomy. So that's great. There are some on, I guess, on the right side when you come in that sort of on the hillside and it's wide open, so there aren't any trees. So not as private, but still you get beautiful views. And some grasslands around you. Yeah, because it's terraced, you know, the higher up you get, the views get even nicer. Some of the services that the campground has is it has flush or pit toilets and also a nice shower building. One thing I guess we will have to note about that campground, it is down the hill from the highway and it's quite a busy highway because it goes from Kelowna to Vernon. So it can be a little bit noisy. The closer you are or higher up the hill you are, you will hear a lot more of the highway noise. Yeah, so we really liked it there. I mean, if the weather had been a little warmer, it would have been really probably an enjoyable stay for us. A close second in this category for us was probably Kittle Valley Provincial Park. It's also a great place to do some hiking and you're right on the Kittle Valley Trail, which goes, I think, for hundreds of kilometers. So certainly another option if you're into biking. It's a very nice campground as well, Kettle River, but the reason why we didn't pick it is because it can get very busy there. Kukuli Bay might get busy too in the summertime, peak season. Okay, so the next campground is the best for access to hiking trails, is the Ilisiluwa Campground in Glacier National Park, Canada. Actually located just off of Highway 1 in Canada's Glacier National Park between Revelstoke and Golden in BC. It's a great campground. It probably would have even been my personal favorite place for the year, and I guess that's a giveaway that it isn't, if we'd had a nicer camp spot. There's a number of campsites that are there. When we were there, I think half the campground roughly was closed down due to some flooding damage, and the spot we had, which was fine, if we'd had one of the nice ones, say, near the river, though we were only probably about 100 feet from the river, it may have bumped up the experience, but it's just such a great spot where it's located. One thing to note about the campground as well is if you're in any of the national parks in Canada, you do require a pass, and you can buy that per day, or you can buy it annually. Ilisiluwa Campground has a total of 60 first come, first served sites. So no reservations. Yeah, you can make reservations at another campground called Lube Brook, but that one is a little bit further away from the main hiking trails. The Ilisiluwa Campground is really the base camp for all of the major hiking trails in Glacier National Park. And it's great because the trails are, I mean, first you can walk from your campsite for less than 10 minutes and be at a junction of two rivers watching the sun set on a mountain to some really long, technically difficult trips, all so close to your campground. So it's just a wonderful place to spend time. I think we spent like a good five days there. There is an on-site park operator kiosk, I guess you could call it. During the day. Yeah, during the day. So there are staff there, and they do also have interpretive programs as well in the evening. I don't know if it's every night in the summer, but we did see two of them. Yeah, I think they're most nights. We went twice and we really enjoyed them. We did one on the history of the railroad and then on the other, which was, I think, just a history of that particular park and it was great. Yeah, and there's historical significance at that park. There is a site of the former Glacier House, which was a 90-room hotel. They were open in the late 1800s, early 1900s. But you do see remnants of it. So it's really interesting. And there's signs to tell you about the hotel. And also, there's a lot of history of Swiss guides. At one point, the railway actually went where the hotel was. And then eventually, because of some of the problems with snow avalanches and things along that line, they moved the railway back down into the valley. And that seemed to be the start of when the hotel became less popular and eventually, and it was just a challenge to keep open in the closed it. But we really enjoyed the sessions that the parks people did. They were energetic. They sometimes brought props you could put on and be part of the process. So we'd really recommend going there. Yeah. And the nice thing about being at Glacier National Park is it's very close to the Rogers Pass Discovery Center. And it's kind of like a museum almost. It has a lot of historical artifacts there. They talk about the history of the area and it's really interesting. So it's definitely worth a stop. So in terms of services at this particular park, they're limited. There are washrooms that do have flush toilets and hot water, no shower buildings. Some of the campsites are small and a little bit awkward to get in. I think the limit that they have on the signage to camp there is about 25 feet for an RV. Even in our van, there was a couple that would be difficult to pull in and park. But there were some people there with, I think, even larger RVs than these park specs suggested. But some of the sites are great. Some of them are, I think it was originally designed mostly for tenting. So I'm sure there's some great ones for RVs and a lot of good ones for tents. The other thing to note that there are really, there's no Santa dump. If you have a self-contained RV, there is no Santa dump there. You either have to, you can drive, I think the closest one is at a private RV place called Canyon Hot Springs Resort. Or you can do as we did and go into Revelstoke and we did some sort of shopping and things like that. And then Revelstoke has a municipal RV dump as well that's free as I recall. So we really enjoyed it there. We were there several days. We hiked some easy trails, some hard trails, sat by the river a number of times. And it was just a really enjoyable spot. Yeah, it was just great. No real negatives other than we didn't get the nicest camping spot, but it was okay. It was okay. We were right in front of the washroom building. Which is nice if you want to use the washroom. Yeah. Okay, so the third campground that we chose and we chose that one for best camp site, but it's just a wonderful, wonderful area. This is the Lower Lake Campground at Peter Lougheed Provincial Park in Alberta in the Kananaskis region. And the Kananaskis region is actually located not too far from Canmore and it's a beautiful, incredible area. It's a huge region and they have a multitude of parks that you can choose from, provincial parks. And the scenery basically rivals Banff and Jasper. It's famous among Canadians, but I'm not sure if internationally. It's just widely known. Yeah. I actually think it used to be part of Banff National Park at one time and then it was pieced out into the provincial park. But we liked it primarily because the campsites that we saw and the ones that the one that we stayed in were, they were big, they were very private, lots of trees, long access road into your, your campsite. It just, it was like we had our own little park and it looked like all the campsites are that way. Now we stayed at the Lower Lakes Campground. The Lower Lake Campground. Yeah. It was nice. I think all reservation, although if there, you can show up and if there's any spaces that are open, you can obviously take them. The only negative thing I think about that particular campground for us was that if you wanted to go to the water, it was probably about a kilometer walk from the campsite to, and, and it would be closer depending on the site that you had. We were kind of at one end of the, I guess we were at the far end. Yeah, we were in loop A and I think loop, there's loop ABC and I think loop B was the closest to the lake. Yeah, which would be much closer, probably like a five or 10 minute walk at the most. So, or maybe just a two minute walk. So quite close. And they don't actually have like a beachy area there on that side of the lake. According to the park operator, it's, it's a wildlife corridor. So I don't think they encourage a lot of people to kind of wander out there unless they're prepared. So they did tell us when we were heading out there that you have to have bear spray with you. Yeah, it actually makes note of that. And I went paddling there a couple of times, you know, just me and a couple of grizzlies. And it was, it was, you know, it was good. It was nice. I actually, we didn't see, we didn't see any, we actually didn't see any bears there, which was unexpected. I thought we might see some, but it was very nice. There are other, several other campgrounds in that area as well. Each, I think even one of them has shower facilities. The other that looked very appealing to us was the Interlakes campground. Yes. And it's right across the lake. Yeah, I paddled in front of it. And what was really nice there is the Interlakes is that the majority of campsites are either right on the lakefront or you're just across the road from it. So you get nice views of the mountains in the morning, you have access to the water. And I think there's several hiking trails that lead from there as well. And we probably would have gone there. It's just, we were worried that we might not be able to get a reservation because it was, you know, still a busy time. And that, that particular Interlakes is all first come first serve. And if we decided, if the weather hung in for us, so when we were there, the weather wasn't that great. And if the weather hung in for us, we probably would have stayed a few extra days at the Interlakes campsite and likely really enjoyed it. And the other campground nearby there is, and we actually popped over, we didn't actually see the campsites, but it's the Bolton Creek campground. And it's right across the highway from our campground and has a Santa dump. It has flush toilets and showers. It has a general store, which we popped into. They have ice cream. Yeah. They have a little food kiosk that sells ice cream and hot dogs, pizza, that sort of thing. So, um, yeah. And they also have hiking trails that go from, from there as well. So there's so many areas that we would like to explore in Kananaskis. We only just got a little glimpse of it. Yeah. So if you're going to go, make sure you take either kayak or a pack raft, um, probably a bike. Cause some of the trails around there also paved biking trails. We walked some of them just to get to the store that Mickey was talking about. Just a beautiful area. It didn't seem busy at all. I mean, the campground was relatively full, but even the, the, the highway Mickey references really just a roadway and it didn't seem rarely any cars on it. So just a beautiful area and we'd really recommend people exploring it. Yeah. The fourth campground that we selected, we chose it for the fact that it has the best off-season camping and services is the Skyview campground in E.C. Manning Park. Yeah. So if you've watched our videos, you know, Manning Park is kind of almost always an honorable mention for us. It's always a place we go to often in the summer or spring, we can do hiking, we can do paddling. Uh, there's a variety of different campgrounds. There are a couple of them right near the river, mule deer, and, uh, which is a, probably one of our favorites in cold spring. And then of course there's the big lightning lake campground. But, uh, I think last year they re they opened up the new Skyview campground and Skyview campground is, uh, it's where there used to be a number of, uh, dead trees from the pine beetle kill. And so they've cleaned up that. So, you know, we'll talk a little bit about the campground. I'd say the only negative thing I saw about it was the fact that, you know, there's not a lot of trees or bushes between your campsites because the campsite is so recently, well, it just because the campground was recently opened and there just haven't, hasn't been a chance yet for some of the undergrowth to, to regrow. Yeah. So maybe the sites are not as private as some of the other campsites in Manning Park. Now there are some sites that you can find, uh, that do have a little bit more privacy. We've been fortunate to do that. There's also some pull through sites as well. If you have a big rig, we've listed it as off season. And the reason is because it's open all year. Um, all the sites are fully service. They have water sewer and power, uh, which is great, uh, particularly in the, as for those of you that go out in the colder months, it's nice just to have an electric heater plugged in rather than run your, run your furnace. Great washroom building, showers. The main washroom buildings open all year round, but they also have other washrooms, which are actually flush toilets, uh, throughout the campground, which is great. And dishwashing facilities. Yeah. If you're tenting. So we've enjoyed our stay. We've stayed there, I guess, a couple of times. And the other thing to note that if you do go in the summer, there's a much bigger selection of sites than there is in the off season. Uh, I think we guessed roughly one third of the sites. It could be more are closed during the off season simply because they don't have a winterized water pipes. So they would freeze up if they left the water in them. So they closed that section during the winter months. Actually, I think it becomes part of, or very close to, uh, part of the cross country ski trails. So if you are there, you're not, it's a short 10 minute walk, probably the lightning lakes area. Uh, there's a hiking trails close by biking trails. And in the wintertime, you've got cross country skiing and you're not too far away from the Alpine skiing. It's at Manning Park. And the other thing that's nice is Manning Park resort itself has a lot of services. It has a general store in case you forget to buy something like bread or milk. Beer. Beer. Oh yes, they do have alcoholic beverages there as well. And they have a pub and they have a restaurant. Yeah. And we've pretty much done all of those things there. And I've enjoyed it. Yep. Okay. So the best overall campground, drum roll please, is the Wilcox Campground at Jasper National Park. It's located just sort of, uh, north of the boundary between Banff and Jasper National Parks. It's right across from the Columbia Ice Fields and it's an all first come first serve campground. Which we tend to prefer because we never quite know often where we're going to be, though we will make reservations in some of the busy parks. Two things also about Wilcox, it's right on the Ice Fields Parkway, which is just a wonderful drive. It's between basically Banff and Jasper. Probably one of the nicest drives in Canada. And so scenic if you're fortunate enough to be there on a beautiful sunny day. And there's also a number of campgrounds all along that way. So if you're used to going into Jasper proper or into Banff proper and camping there, those sites tend to be a little busier, though there are some more rustic ones a little farther away from either town. But if you're driving and stopping in any of the campgrounds along the parkway, there, there's, there's several, they're usually are close to either paddling opportunities or hiking opportunities. And they're just nestled in a valley between a couple of ranges of mountains. So it's, it's just amazing, just quite a few of them are first come first serve campgrounds. So you don't have to worry about booking a reservation unless it's like a really busy holiday weekend. The elevation at Wilcox is fairly high. I can't remember, but I think you're somewhere around 6,000 feet. And so that means it's not going to be as hot during the day and it's going to cool down at night, which was exactly one of the reasons we were there. You have outstanding views when we were sitting and having lunch, we just looked at great mountain ranges, whether that was behind us or in front of us, you have access to a really nice hiking area. You can start off at the, I think it's a Wilcox trail. Yeah. It's called the Wilcox pass trail. And, you know, if you want to just go an hour up there, it's, you'll get some amazing views. If you want to carry on when you get up to the pass, you can choose to go up into other areas. If you want to do the longer days, it's just, it's just gorgeous. Yeah. It's the scenery is just stunning really. Cause you've got the beautiful mountain Ridge on one side, the Jagged peaks, and then you've got the ice fields on the other side. And then you're walking through this beautiful Alpine meadow. It's an, Oh, and you can see a beautiful waterfall as well. So it's just unbelievable. And the trail itself isn't that long. I mean, it's not that difficult. Yeah. You can walk maybe three or four kilometers and you get into this incredible area and it's a very popular hiking trail. So you can, you can understand why it's very busy. And so if you are not staying at the campground and you need to drive over to the trailhead, then you'll want to get there really early. It's probably all summer long and that's what's true for most national parks anyway. But it's just a beautiful, beautiful trail. We really loved it. Yeah. It was definitely between it and Silhouette. We really liked our campsite, albeit small, it was private, not too close to anyone else. It tends to be a lot of people just come in for one day, but we were there a few days. There is a size limit for RVs and they're all kind of, you just pull up to the side. Most people don't have to back into their site, which is kind of nice. You know, you don't have to, to do a lot of maneuvering around. Yeah. Not so much an issue in a van, but for those people that are traveling with the trailer. And there's also nice cooking shelters as well, if you're in a tent and there's toilets. Also because it's part, maybe it's the thing with the national parks. When you, when you stay there, you actually, they have a section for firewood. Now, when we were there, there was no firewood for whatever reason. Um, you were allowed to have fires, but for some reason the contract hadn't delivered firewood. So they reduced the price of the fee, the camping fee. I can't remember, I think it's 26 or $28, but that includes the firewood and, uh, all the firewood you want and a fire fee, if you will, or a permit fee for a fire. But they dropped, I think our, um, our campsite was 17 or $16 a night because there was no firewood available. And the other thing about that campground is there is a Santa dump there. It's quite rudimentary. Um, you only have kind of like the sewer hole in the ground and one hose. And I assume that's not drinking water. So it's probably just to rinse your hose with. Yeah. As I recall, that was it. We could just dump our tanks and, uh, you know, rinse the ground if you need to. Um, and we filled up with water at a different site, um, on the way. Yeah. And it's a great place also to base camp. If you want to visit the Columbia Icefield, the Athabasca Glacier is, um, just a few minutes away and they also have, um, glacier walks and, uh, bus tours there as well. So. And you're not far from anything else. You're not too far from the visitor center. You're maybe what, a kilometer away, which has one minor advantage is later at night, you can sometimes piggyback off their wifi, uh, but it has to be probably like eight or nine at night until maybe five in the morning. You might, you might be able to get a few text messages through. Oh, and by the way, at the visitor center, you are allowed to camp overnight. So I think they have accommodations for, um, probably around a hundred rigs. If you need to, it's probably more like a parking lot, but if you just need a quick place to stay overnight, that's a great option as well. Yeah. You have to have a self-contained rig. You couldn't be in a tent. Actually, some of our viewers, Steven Darlene, I think had sent us an email saying that they stayed there and they really enjoy it because in the evening you get the cool wind blowing off the glacier, uh, which would be kind of cool, no pun intended. And I don't think you're too far from Jasper. So if you wanted to go in for the day, you probably could, if there was something you wanted to do laundry or do a gym workout at the rec center or something like that. Yeah. Yeah. We just really enjoyed staying there. Um, there was, we did have a really scary incident there. If you watched our video, um, we, uh, finished our catches, ran off for a few hours, but luckily everything went okay. Um, but despite all that, we still really enjoyed that campground. So we, we had to, we solved that issue, but we also met this wonderful couple, Mike and Deb, and they were so helpful to us, uh, in trying to find Finch. And then we, we had a couple of nights where we shared beer and wine with them and it was truly enjoyable. So that was a, that made it a big plus for us too. Yeah. So that was the five campgrounds that we really enjoyed in 2022. There's so much to explore and, you know, we always feel like we just scratch the surface of each area we go to. So. Yeah. And actually that's the truth, but we usually do, if we're only there a day or two, we're just scratching the surface. And it's when we come back, you know, we've seen that before. We've stayed, I think at, you know, on the West coast, some of the beaches, and we've just there for a night or two and we just get a taste of it. And then we go back and we'll spend three or four days somewhere and we can hike or paddle. And then we really, really do get a chance to enjoy the area much more. So we hope you found this video useful and hopefully enjoyable. And if you did, please be sure to give us a thumbs up and subscribe to our channel. If you haven't done so already and we and Finch our cat, we'll see you next time. Yeah. We wish you safe travels in 2023. We'll see you next time.