Travel Planning A Family Road Trip To The Alberta Badlands & Canadian Prairies

The Alberta Badlands and Canadian Prairies were not on my holiday radar until I watched a webinar about Saskatchewan, “Land of the Living Skies”, given by Wanderlust Magazine and was instantly intrigued. Having previously visited Ontario and British Columbia, travelling to a different part of Canada on a family road trip became appealing. However, the response from my family (who had not watched the webinar) was “so it’s badlands or prairies – no trees – just rock or grass? How interesting can that be?”. Good question, just how interesting can that be? We decided to find out…

Where are the Alberta Badlands & Canadian Prairies?

The Alberta Badlands refers to the area in eastern Alberta where the landscape was dramatically formed by glaciation millions of years ago leaving it rich in dinosaur bones. There are badlands elsewhere in Canada which we didn’t visit on this road trip.

The Canadian Prairies start in Alberta but stretch right across the southern section of neighbouring province, Saskatchewan, and into the province of Manitoba.

You can fly into Calgary and head east for your trip, or fly into Regina or Saskatoon and head west, whichever route works best for you.

Why go on a family road trip to the Alberta Badlands & Canadian Prairies?

After listening to the Wanderlust webinar, I set about researching options for our family road trip – reading travel blogs, Canada travel guides and referring to Audley Travel who have a good self-drive itinerary for Saskatchewan. The more I researched possibilities for this trip, the more I found elements which would appeal to different members of the family:

• Rodeo in Strathmore 
• Ranch life in the Cypress Hills InterProvincial Park 
• Bison and dark sky preserve in Grasslands National Park 
• Bootlegging history and murals in Moose Jaw
• The Royal Canadian Mounted Police training depot in Regina
• Art on the banks of the river in Saskatoon
• Dinosaurs in Drumheller, and 
• Native America history throughout 

Note – this trip is more suitable for older children or young adults due to the longer car journeys required between stops. For this trip we were travelling with two of our children (aged 17 plus) who had put together a cowboy themed ‘Yee Haw’ playlist on Spotify to keep us occupied in between stops.

When is the best time of year to visit the Alberta Badlands & Canadian Prairies?

July and August are good months to enjoy this trip, although the shoulder months would also be worthwhile. We travelled in August and enjoyed sunny hot weather except for one rainy day when luckily, we were in the car moving between destinations, so nothing was lost.

Note – there was smoke in the sky in some sections of the trip, for example, in the Alberta Badlands and leaving Saskatoon, blowing in from forest fires further away and creating a slightly eerie feel.

Where to stop on a family road trip of the Alberta Badlands & Canadian Prairies?

Whilst I would ideally like to have taken three weeks for this road trip, unfortunately we only had two weeks due to work restraints. This meant missing out on Prince Albert National Park above Saskatoon, which offers a more traditional arboreal Canadian landscape of trees and lakes.

It also meant making decisions to avoid duplication – only one dinosaur destination (missing out Dinosaur Provincial Park), only one ranch stay (missing out La Reata Ranch) and only one Badlands stop (missing out the Grasslands National Park, East Block).

In the end we decided to explore via the following route:

• Flight into Calgary, but stayed in Strathmore, Alberta – 1 night
• Cypress Hills InterProvincial Park, Alberta/Saskatchewan – 2 nights
  • Pit-stop at Fort Walsh and Maple Creek
• The Grasslands National Park, Saskatchewan – 3 nights
  • Pit-stop at Swift Current
• Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan – 1 night 
• Regina, Saskatchewan – 2 nights
  • Pit-stop at Little Manitou Lake
• Saskatoon, Saskatchewan – 3 nights 
  • Pit-stop at the Drumheller HooDoos and Wayne
• Drumheller, Alberta – 2 nights 
• Returned to Calgary to fly home, with a stop-over in Dallas 

Booking your flights and car rental

Saving money on the flights with the British Airways Loyalty Scheme

We wanted to fly to Canada from the UK with British Airways as we are part of the British Airways Loyalty Scheme, however there were no direct flights to Calgary with British Airways (or OneWorld Alliance partner) at the time of booking.

We therefore came up with the alternative plan of flying from London Heathrow to Dallas Fort Worth with British Airways, using Avios points and two AMEX Companion vouchers to allow four of us to fly for the price of two tickets. We then bought flights from Dallas to Calgary with American Airlines to complete our journey.

Whilst it might seem like a long way round of doing things, it maximised the benefits of the British Airways Loyalty Scheme and worked out cheaper for us overall. As if to legitimise our decision, surprisingly there was another family from Harrogate taking the same route!

Our stop-over in Dallas, USA

Originally, we weren’t planning a stop-over in Dallas, but after googling the flights from London to Dallas, and noting that they were regularly arriving one hour late, we decided the transfer times were too tight. As a result, we switched to staying overnight in Dallas on the way out, and the way back, to be on the safe side.

This stop-over cut into our Canada time and prevented us having a night in Calgary itself, but allowed for half a day of sight-seeing in Dallas on the way back – bonus!

Renting a car for our family road trip

We used AVIS car hire for our family road trip of the Alberta Badlands and Canadian Prairies, and actually got the car we booked – amazing! We were given a large Grand Cherokee Jeep to accommodate the four of us and all our bags, and the comfort was welcome on the longer driving days.

Once you’ve decided on your itinerary and booked your flights and car hire then you can think more broadly about your trip – check out my blog about things which are good to know before you embark on a road trip of the Alberta Badlands and Canadian Prairies.

What accommodation can you book for a family road trip of the Alberta Badlands & Canadian Prairies?

My research highlighted a couple of accommodation options which promised memorable stays:

• Historic Reesor Ranch (featured on the Wanderlust Magazine webinar) – to offer a slice of ranch life and opportunities to ride horses and quad bikes
• The Crossing at the Grasslands (found on Audley Travel) – offering access to the Grasslands National Park and Dark Sky Preserve.

These became priority bookings for our trip and so, having checked availability at both properties, I then built the itinerary around them.

Our other accommodation was then a mixture of AirBnB bookings, or hotels booked via Booking.com.

What activities should you book in advance of your family road trip?

If your travel dates coincide with one of the local Stampedes (rodeos), perhaps Calgary or Strathmore, then I would book those tickets in advance to ensure that you get access and good seats on the days you require.

The Historic Reesor Ranch offered on-site activities such as horse riding and ATV rides which we booked before travelling to make sure that didn’t miss out.

We also booked tickets to the Moose Jaw Tunnels and Shakespeare on the Saskatchewan before travelling, just to know that we had them.

Reflections on our family road trip itinerary to the Alberta Badlands & Canadian Prairies

Ideally, if you have the time, three weeks would be better than two to allow a visit to Prince Albert National Park. However, it is worth pointing out that Saskatchewan is huge and even with an extra week, our family road trip itinerary ignored the northern part of the province and all that offers!

So how interesting could it be? As it turns out – very interesting indeed. There is a particular beauty about the endless horizons of the prairies and grasslands areas which it is difficult to explain, which contrasted nicely with the other worldly landscapes of the badlands. The history of the land (dating back to the dinosaurs) and the indigenous peoples, coupled with the beauty of the landscape meant there was always something of interest along the way.

Our family road trip to the Alberta Badlands & Canadian Prairies was a huge hit with everyone as it was so different to anywhere we had visited before, and so different to the ‘Rockies’ vision of Canada that we foreigners had in our minds.

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