Driving through western Canada
 

My wife and I are considering an early summer drive from Chicago to Vancouver.

Here, we'd enter Canada through North Dakota and proceed through Winnipeg, Regina and Calgary.

Two questions: (1) how is the drive through the Canadian Rockiest? ( I don't like cliff driving.) ... and (2) which cities and towns are worth extra effort to visit?

If you don't like "cliff driving", avoid the section between Lake Louise and Golden.

Beautiful. The highway is going to look like this - I wouldn't call it 'cliff driving.'

http://www.worldofstock.com/slides/TAW4380.jpg


- Kelowna / Penticton
- Victoria

check your route on mapquest
 

I suggest having a look at mapquest.com............

Crossing the border at North Dakota adds 300 km to your drive, and most of it is not very scenic.

In the alternative, I recommend driving to Spokane, then go north via Nelson, Castelgar, etc. Very pretty and you avoid the big loop north (where at times they close the road @ Golden due to rock slides, avalanche blasting, etc. Welcome to Canada!

Penticton is in the southern Okanagan, I recommend rafting the river channel between Lake Okanagan and Lake Skaha:
http://www.okanaganvacationguide.com...r-channel.html
Victoria is nice, but last time I checked its not en route to Vancouver!

I have to strongly disagree. The stretch between Calgary and Golden is not to be missed - And your suggested routing will cost them Banff & Lake Louise altogether.

Certainly the road in Rogers Pass is closed now and again, but this is very rare and they work very quickly to keep the road open.

Penticton is one of my favourite places in BC, but it is a bit weather-permitting. It's definitely a summer resort town, but if the weather and time permit, the detour down to Penticton can be well worth it.

In fact, I may even recommend going all the way down to Osoyoos and then taking Highway 3 through Princeton. The road's smaller, but it's gorgeous and you get to avoid Merritt. The Coke works well, of course, but it'd involve driving back up from Penticton the way you came on the 97 to get to Westbank.

On second thought, taking the 97 twice doesn't sound like a bad idea when this is your view: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:T...BC,_Canada.jpg