Banff National Park, Alberta

Believe it or not, we tented in Banff. Anyone who has been here in the middle of the jam-packed tourist season with the weekend approaching will appreciate what a miracle this is. We didn't bring a tent from Oregon, instead figuring we'd buy one in Canada that is better suited to the weather up here, but most of the stores we tried were out of them. We finally found one store, just before reaching the national parks, that had one very good quality, Canadian-made tent left... and for half price, no less, because it's close to the end of summer. We snapped that up, cruised into Banff on a Thursday night with no advance reservations, and still managed to get a gorgeous treed tent site close to a lake. Talk about winging it!