Banff, Alberta was been on my bucket list for quite some time, mostly due to Moraine Lake and Lake Louise. The crazy teal color of the water is just unbelievable with the mountain backdrop.

I asked my good photographer friend Kylene if she’d want to road trip to Canada with me as she is always up for anything! She said yes and so we planned to go in July. Luckily we were there right before some major fires they had which left the area very Smokey.

We had originally planned to stay in a hostel right inside the National Park, but after one night there Kylene wanted to move to a hotel haha! So we moved to a hotel in Canmore which is a city very close to Banff. We spent our first day hiking Sunshine Village which is actually a ski resort. We took the lift up to the trailhead and hiked the Sunshine Meadows hike to Rock Isle Lake. We saw a fox and the entire hike was gorgeous as was Rock Isle Lake!

We then went to Lake Louise which I knew would be overrun with tourists but it was still beautiful. We rented a canoe and went out on the lake which helped get away from the masses. Afterwards we spent the rest of the day in the town of Banff eating and souvenir shopping. Banff is the cutest town surrounded by mountains, adorable shops, and good restaurants. We also went to the local brewery there, Banff Ave Brewing Co.

The next day we got up early and headed for Moraine Lake, the whole reason I wanted to come to Banff National Park in the first place. We had to get there really early as the parking lot fills up by 8 AM everyday requiring you to take a shuttle to the lake. The lake was of course surrounded with tourists but man was it beautiful! Not many places are as pretty as pictures online depict, but Moraine Lake is truly as beautiful as all the photos and the water is really this incredible saturated blue. It is much smaller than Lake Louise and a way more beautiful blue. There’s a huge rock pile you can climb up to get a birds eye view and to try to get away from the masses of people. After climbing above the lake we descended down to a private shoreline where nobody else was at to sit and admire the lake for awhile.

We rented another canoe afterwards to go out on the lake and the guy told us to take it however long we wanted, so we laid out in the sun and floated around the lake. Afterwards we headed back in to Banff to spend more time around town.

It was a short trip with about fourteen hours and a thousand miles of driving each way, but it was totally worth it to escape our crazy busy wedding seasons and to knock this beautiful area off my bucket list.. although I’m sure I’ll need to come back someday!