The story starts while I sit on a plane in Edmonton waiting to depart to New Brunswick via Ottawa. My intentions were to have a schedule to share so that people could book me for shoots and SEO consults while I traipsed around the country on my summer vacation.

But I didn’t quite get around to it.

I wasn’t supposed to be on a road trip but here we are. The plan was for me to purchase an investment property in New Brunswick and be renovating it this summer. I’ve always wanted to spend more time out east and saw this as a good opportunity to do so. But the property I wanted didn’t work out and I had already sublet my apartment so I decided to go on a road trip.

Those of you who know me won’t be surprised by this turn of events.

For fear of this becoming the worlds longest blog post, I will split it up into sections/provinces, starting with BC.

After leaving Vancouver, I started off by volunteering at the Vipassana meditation centre for a couple of nights. I’ve only ever been a student and never served so it was a good experience to give back. The food was amazing and it was interesting (and beautiful) to be there in summer. These beautiful flowers and sunset are taken from the meditation centre. I really enjoyed the service part of being there, and two nights was a great introduction to longer stays.

After Merritt I continued to Kelowna where a friend of mine lives. I stayed for two nights and we went to the gym and on a day hike to the Enderby Cliffs. Did I mention it was during a heat wave? That was a lot lol. I’ll put some pictures from our hike in the gallery below, I flew my drone which was fun! You can see the video here. We stopped at a friends pool overlooking the Mission Hill Winery and felt like queens splooshing around in the pool and hot shade with a view of the valley.

Then it was time to continue.

I spent a night in the Shuswap region and explored this magical canyon called Margaret Falls. I can’t say enough about this beautiful spot! It’s a short easy walk from the parking lot, through a cool canyon with large trees that have collapsed over the river from each side forming a type of tunnel structure in parts. It’s quite striking, and I enjoyed that part more than the waterfall at the end.

I am a fan of views. I look them up wherever I go so I don’t miss any on my adventures. I discovered a viewpoint called the Shuswap Lake Lookout, which you can get to via a well maintained logging road above Sicamous. It’s actually a launch spot for hanggliders, and the view is epic. On the way up, however, I spotted a forest fire on top of a mountain. I called it in (my first time calling the wildfire hotline) but they already knew about it. You could even see flames, it was pretty crazy! Little did I know this was a sign of things to come. I flew my drone here and one day I might post a video. When I do I will link it here.

I had plans in a couple of days to meet my friend Jackie in Kananaskis, but I had an extra night to spend…somewhere. My intention was to see what Revelstoke was like, since I keep hearing amazing things about it. As I approached though, it got smokier and smokier. I found a place for lunch and by the time I got to Revy, you couldn’t even see mountains. I wanted to hike or do whatever else people do there in the summer…but the air quality and visibility was pretty low, so I kept going. I figured I’d head to Banff National Park and stay there, except it was Saturday night, and finding a place to stay on a Saturday in peak season (July) at the last minute is not anyone’s idea of a good time. When I reached Golden, it was 6pm so I thought I’d just stay there. It had been a few days since I got some work done so I decided to spring for a room somewhere so I could have wifi and get some work done. EXCEPT, it was Saturday and most places were booked. The only place that had availability was the Travelodge at the side of the road. Guess how much it was. No seriously, take a guess.

Did you guess?

I was willing to spend up to $300. The Travelodge right off the highway was charging $464 👀 (not sure if that was before or after tax). So, yeah, I didn’t do that. I found a campground nearby and headed there instead. I had brought literally everything for every activity with me, including camping, so off I went to test my new Hawk Nest hammock tent! You can find this tent in my resources page, in case you’d like to order one for yourself. They’re made by a local BC guy from Kelowna with a great story!

Fortunately for me, there was plenty of room at the campground, which was kind of a rec site, which means no amenities except for a toilet (yay). But no site had any trees, and despite it’s name being Hoodoo Creek Campground there was no creek anywhere nearby. So I pitched the tent on the ground…and enjoyed the evening with no reception. Here’s the tent and campground!

The next morning, I headed into the Rockies! I crossed the border into Alberta and stopped at a few scenic points along the way. Banff was less than two hours away, so I stopped at Natural Bridge, I stopped in Lake Louise for gas and coffee, and got in touch with Jackie and we arranged for her to come meet me in Banff for lunch. I kept expecting time to go back an hour but it didn’t. Upon investigation, I found out that the time change occurs between Revelstoke and Golden, but I hadn’t noticed the day before 😄. On my way back weeks later, I did, in fact, see a sign clearly stating the time change was at that spot, but I managed to not see it heading east.

Anyway, stay tuned for part 2 of the adventure, and enjoy the photos of BC!