The Drive

About 90 minutes, roughly 140 km, almost all of it on the Trans-Canada Highway (Highway 1) heading west. That figure is honest in good conditions and optimistic in several common ones.

What Actually Slows It Down

• Calgary rush hour. Leaving the airport between about 3.30 and 6pm on a weekday adds real time before you clear the city.
• Winter. This is a mountain highway. Snow, black ice and reduced visibility turn 90 minutes into two hours or more, and closures do happen.
• Summer weekends. Calgary drives to the mountains too. Sunday-evening eastbound is the worst of it.
• Wildlife. Not a delay so much as a reason not to drive it tired after a long flight.

The Part Worth Looking Up For

The prairie runs flat out of Calgary and then, about forty minutes in, the front ranges come up all at once. It is genuinely startling the first time and it is the reason a window seat on the shuttle is not wasted.

Car or Shuttle?

Take a car if you want Lake Louise, Moraine Lake and Johnston Canyon on your own schedule, and you are comfortable with winter mountain driving if visiting between November and April.

Take a shuttle if you are staying in Banff town, arriving after a long-haul flight, travelling in winter, or simply do not want to think about parking — which in Banff in July is a genuine problem. From $43.

More on that trade in shuttle or rental car.