10 Awesome Things To Do When Visiting Banff & Lake Louise in the Summer

well hello everyone my name is ken and this is northern viking explorer and today i'm going to share with you 10 awesome things to do when visiting banff and lake louise in the summer banff and lake louise are located in banff national park in alberta canada nestled in the rocky mountains it's such a beautiful place to visit so these 10 awesome stops and banff and lake louise are in no particular order other than the fact that my favorite one is the last one so you'll have to stick around to find out which one that is most of these stops are free a couple of them are paid for but all of them do require you to have the banff national park pass i'll put a link below in the description so you can find out the cost of that and some of them do have paid parking as well so that's something to be aware of now i will have links to all of these stops below in the description now i can't possibly cover every awesome thing to do in banff and lake louise so i'm sure there's more out there if you have some ideas make sure to leave those in the comments below but let's go ahead and dive right into the 10 awesome things to do in banff and lake louise [Music] so the first stop on our list is to actually visit lake louise itself if you haven't seen pictures of lake louise before it's a beautiful turquoise-colored lake nestled in the rocky mountains it's about 45 minutes from banff itself and it's at an elevation of 1600 meters as for parking it is paid parking at the top it's free to go look at the lake but it is paid for parking at the top if you're willing to hike there is some free parking further down they also run shuttles down from the highway up to lake louise as well it does get very busy there in the summer while you're up there you can stop in the fairmont chateau lake louise maybe grab some lunch in there absolutely beautiful hotel overlooking the lake there's also some shops and different souvenir shops and different things in there the other thing is you can do some hiking while you're up there go hike around the lake you can take a selfie it is absolutely amazing you've probably seen selfies online from lake louise as well as you can go canoeing up there so much to do beautiful stop it is a must stop if you're headed to this area so number two on our list is to actually go explore downtown banff there's a good chance you're already staying in this area because many of the hotels are right in this area there's also a visitor center down there if you want to find more information on banff now while you're down there this is a great place to go for your meals there's tons of restaurants some of our favorites are down there the keg if you like to go for steaks or there's also the old spaghetti factory if you're down there with a family but you can also do shopping while you're in downtown banff all the souvenir shops are down there you can get all sorts of winter clothing or summer clothing heli henson outfits all sorts of stuff there's small department stores and of course candy stores chocolate shops as well as beavertails which is one of our favorites so make sure you head on down to downtown bamf it has a similar experience to visiting the whistler village but this is downtown banff and it's awesome to visit so number three on our list is to go visit the bankhead ghost town in lower bankhead now lower bankhead is located right outside of banff not too far actually between banff and lake minnewanka and this was an early 1900s coal mine that there's remnants of there so it shut down in 1922 in this area you're gonna find all sorts of buildings and foundations you can walk on and climb through as well as there's an old coal train there that you can go climb on a small coal train that your kids will love it's super cool in there one thing i should say this is in the wildlife so just be wary of animals that are out there there are bears in this area so you may want to pick up some bear spray if you're going to be walking through here lots of wildlife we even saw a fox while we were walking through here so super cool place to visit the bankhead ghost town so number four on our list is to go ride the banff gondola into the mountains it's absolutely gorgeous sits about 10 minutes or five kilometers outside of downtown banff and this is a paid attraction there's parking up there but you do need to pay to ride the gondola at the base of the gondola there is a starbucks this is the highest starbucks in canada so if you want to check that out there's also a souvenir shop now when you're riding the gondola up the mountain you're going to find amazing views all around you it's absolutely gorgeous when you get to the top there's an observation area with restaurants coffee shops souvenir shops it's absolutely stunning up there you'll be able to take all your photos kind of 360 degree views from up there you can see downtown banff you can see the golf courses mountain norway all down the valleys it's stunning up there then when you're up there if you've gone for lunch or dinner you can do that but then you can go for a hike or a walk alone along the sulfur mountain boardwalk which will take you up to another viewpoint it's absolutely stunning from there again 360 degree views it's definitely worth the short hike to get those views a ton of fun and you're not going to want to miss out on the banff gondola so number five on our list is the cave and basin national historic site there's actually quite a few things to do here we're only going to go over a couple of them so on the free side there's actually a hike you can do here that takes you down to the marsh then there's a boardwalk that goes out into the marsh this is a great place for bird watching or animal viewing there's even a platform out there that's protective so the animals don't really see you it's kind of a cool place to go for kind of kind of a family hike it's not very steep and it's quite easy to get out there the other things that are there and these are paid for would be the lantern tours you can do that where you walk through tunnels as well as the banff upper hot springs is up there this is canada's highest elevation operational hot springs so you can check that out while you're there as well and those are both paid for attractions so hope this video is giving you value so far if it is make sure to give it a thumbs up now we did do a whole vlog series a three day vlog series of our trip to banff and lake louise if you are interested in that i will have it linked below in the description for you to watch after this video let's move on to number six so number six on our list is to visit the bow river falls it's right near downtown it is free to visit and it's right near the fairmont banff springs so if you're looking for it head on up towards the fairmont banff springs and you'll hang a left before you get there but it's right in that area when you get there again this is free of charge to visit you've got some beautiful outlooks of the falls right down the river the bow river there you can even go further down and do some white water rafting if that's something you're interested in there is a white water rafting area there but there's gorgeous views it's worth checking out and it's right near banff so it's really quite easy to get to now number seven on my list is to visit the johnson canyon this was definitely one of my favorite stops on our trip it's located about halfway between banff and lake louise now if you are doing camping on your trip this might be a great place for you to go camping because there were some campgrounds in this area they've got a parking lot so this would be mostly if you're interested in hiking johnson canyon is a great hike with absolutely gorgeous views of the johnston canyon so when you get there there is a little area where there's a small restaurant a little souvenir and snack shop you can grab a coffee that sort of thing at the base of it now as you're hiking there are three different hikes but you don't have to pick one there are in a row so you can hike to the lower falls and then continue on to the upper falls and then continue on again to the inkpot so the lower falls is about 1.1 kilometers or 30 minutes the upper falls is about 2.6 kilometers or one hour and the inkpot is about 5.6 kilometers and two to three hours so the lower falls absolutely stunning if you only have time to go the lower falls it is gorgeous there's a little lookout platform of the falls as well as there's a little tunnel you go through the mountain and you get a close-up view of the falls now the walkways up to this area they stick out off the side of the mountain over the river so you walk along these platforms along the edge you have to go under rocks and boulders and they stick out it is really cool a really great place to check out going up to the upper falls there's a little bit more of that to the upper falls and another gorgeous lookout we only went to the upper falls so if you've been to the ink pots i'd love to hear about it what that looked like you can leave that in the comment section below but johnson canyon is definitely a must stop if you're headed to banff and lake louise so number eight on our list is the mount norquay lookout we were told by locals this is the best free lookout that you can drive to in the banff area it's located about six and a half kilometers or a 10 to 15 minute drive right outside of banff it is quite a windy road to get up there you're heading up to the ski area and you'll find an open area with a parking lot and you can walk out there and check out the views of downtown banff all the mountains it was really spectacular out there and if you're lucky enough like us you might have a herd of sheep run by which was totally awesome so number nine on our list is to go visit lake minnewanka lake minnewanka the drive there is a loop drive a lot of people come here to look for animals or spot animals on the side of the road so it's a great place to do that now if you're already headed to the bank head ghost town you're already about halfway to lake minnewanka so just continue on up the road it is free of charge to visit and transit does come up here as well so if you don't have a vehicle you can take transit up to lake minnewanka now this area does have some paid options as well you can do a late cruise up here which is paid for you can rent boats or canoes or if you want to do some free stuff grab a lunch and bring it up there and maybe do some hiking lake minnewanka was absolutely gorgeous go sit out there and enjoy the views maybe bring a lawn chair if you have one and go hang out by the lake so we've reached our final awesome thing to do in banff and lake louise and again this is my favorite thing that we did on our trip so number 10 is visiting moraine lake what a great stop moraine lake is if you haven't heard of moraine lake before you've probably seen pictures of it because it's famous where people will go there and take their instagram photos or instagram selfies of moraine lake it's also famous from canadian photographer peter mckinnon who did his bucket list shot there as well as they put his photo on a coin here in canada so moraine lake now to get there it's about 11 kilometers up the road from lake louise drive so a lot of people when they visit lake louise will go to moraine lake after it's very popular so they do shut the road off when it's full and then they'll let cars through so you might need to circle around a few times before they'll let you up there like they did with us so definitely worth the trek up to moraine lake when you get there it's a gorgeous turquoise colored lake you can do hiking down the side of the lake there you might see wildlife we saw a deer while we were up there take your time go for a stroll up the paths there's a place where you can go for coffee you can get some snacks and souvenirs while you're up there now there's also something called the rock pile that's there so it's a big pile of rocks and there's the rock pile hike or the rock pile trail that takes you up there a ton of steps to get up there but it's definitely worth the hike to go up there because this is where you're going to get the amazing views and the selfie shots that you might be looking for so go up to the rock pile get some awesome views up there there was also some people getting engaged while we were up there so it's very romantic up there as well head on up to rockpile and take your photos up there you will not be disappointed and again this is a moraine lake just outside of lake louise so those are my 10 awesome things to do when visiting banff and lake louise in the summer if you did like this video make sure to give it a thumbs up also if you've got some great ideas of things to do in banff national park i'd love to hear about them in the comments section below and remember i've also got a full vlog series of our trip to this area make sure to check those out in the description thank you so much for watching today remember to subscribe here on youtube and until next time take care [Music]

Channel: Northern Viking Explorer

Views: 70,491

Keywords: Things To Do When Visiting Banff & Lake Louise, things to do in banff, banff national park, lake louise, things to do in lake louise, things to do in banff national, things to do in banff summer, things to do in banff today, things to do in banff this weekend, things to do in banff with kids, free things to do in banff, things to do in banff canada, things to do in banff national park, best things to do in banff, top things to do in banff, fun things to do in banff

Id: 44Y4j8L65V8

Length: 12min 24sec (744 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 12 2022