Saving Money but Still Seeing Canada With Ease

Standing here on one of the highest points in Alberta, east of the Rockies, four members of our tour group secured their helmets and climbed into the red metal tube. Down came a cage-like hood, and it was time to take off. For the next minute and a half, the crew plummeted down the concrete track, twisting, turning and reaching speeds of more than 50 mph.

The bobsled run, originally set up for the Winter Olympics in 1988, is on the outskirts of Calgary, a day trip from Banff on Contiki Holidays’ Canada and the Rockies Tour. It is still used for team training in the winter. For the summer, novices can ride down the dry track in self-steering and self-braking bobsleds.

This was not your usual bus tour. This group was put together by Contiki, the world’s largest tour operator for travelers 18 to 35.

The 10-day tour started in Seattle and picked up more passengers in Vancouver before heading up the scenic Sea to Sky Highway to the Whistler/Blackcomb resort.

Although the youth hostel is outside the village, the Contiki group gets studio-apartment-style lodging in the center, two to a room, and the option of joining a three-hour biking and canoeing trip.

From Jasper it was down the Icefields Parkway to the Columbia Glacier, where passengers were transferred to special, giant-wheeled “snow coaches” that delivered them to a slab of ice so big you could set a city on it. After slipping by blue glacier lakes, the group settled into chalet accommodations in Banff (four shared each chalet) on the edge of town. The route back to the coast includes three Canadian national parks in a day--Yoho, Glacier (with more than 400 glaciers) and Revelstoke (known for its fossils)--and the fruit-filled Okanagan Valley, ending with a dinner cruise in Vancouver.

The price of this tour starts at $999 (land only).

This summer, Contiki will operate 16 tours in North America. Information: (800) 266-8454, Internet https://www.contiki.com.

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Lucy Izon is a Toronto-based freelance writer.