Introduction: Westward Ho!

Time for Another Adventure!

Given the current political and economic situation, this trip Vince and I plan to stay in our home country and explore our great Canadian back yard. To not worry about currency exchange rates, passports, border control checks and the myriad of complications which arise from international travel, seems too good to be true. All of those issues are non-existent if we stay in Canada and travel domestically.

It’s an odd thing – in general, we Canadians tend not to explore our own country, preferring instead to travel to Europe, the UK or Asia… which is such a shame when we live in one of the most beautiful countries in the world. I think the current political climate is, thankfully, turning this around and prompting us to spend our time and money on our own turf… and it’s a good thing.

So, where to go in Canada this year? For several reasons we have settled on B.C. and Alberta. That way we can visit former Toronto neighbours who have moved to Kelowna, B.C., check in with my family in Alberta, and get a little vacation in as well. The travel plan is roughly like this:

I’m sure we will find time to deviate from the agenda, which is frequently a good thing to do.

I’m going to blog the visit slightly different from the usual. I thought this time that, rather than an hour-by-hour or day-by-day activity diary/journal, I would highlight some of the attractions we encounter in a particular town, village or city; the posts will be more location-focused than chronology-based. Also, as with a few of my other travel adventures, the blog posts will be published in retrospect once I’m home; there simply will not be enough time each day to blog while on the road.

We will be flying Porter for the Toronto-Kelowna and Calgary-Toronto portions of this trip, and Westjet from Kelowna to Calgary. I’m very interested to see how the flights are on Porter’s new Embraer E195-E2 jets. I’ve taken Porter’s Dash 8 planes from the Toronto Island airport in the past for shorter hops, so we’ll see how they do on longer haul. I’ve booked us up front in Porter Reserve as it was so incredibly cheap, so that can’t hurt the experience.

OK… time to go!