I'm glad I found this thread.

In June, we will be going to the general area from Vancouver. (No choice, this is a replacement for a cancelled cruise and we decided to keep the air reservations to avoid penalties.)

tWe looked at the train to Banff, but it is ghastly expensive, and the reviews are so-so at best. Also the though of being on a train for 2 long days is not appealing, as we're the "oh, look, that seems interesting, let's stop and look" type.

We have 6 nights total and so far I've laid out:

Day 1 - fairly easy drive to Kamloops and overnight there.

Day 2/3- a bit longer drive to Banff 2 nights at the Fairmont (booked) and tour from there, Lake Louise, etc.

I'm less sure about days 4 and 5 - one route is to overnight in Cranbrook and Osoyoos to do wine country, etc. But I'm not sure this is the best plan. I guess one option would be to stay one more night in Banff and just sort of reverse our course back to Vancouver - day 4 remaining in Banff (or somewhere else not to far away,) and then spending the night of day 5 back in Kamloops or somewhere else on the way to Vancouver, but that seems like sort of the same thing twice.

We'll spend day 6 driving to Vancouver and then will overnight there before our flight out the next morning.

Adding - Another option with doable driving times would be Banff to Jasper and then Jasper to Kamloops (or something else in the general area) and then from there back to Vancouver.

Thoughts?