What would you prioritise on a cross-Canada roadtrip with an eight year old?
Moving from Quebec to the west coast and driving from Quebec City to Vancouver from the 22nd to the 28th. We don't have a huge amount of time for stops, and we definitely want to hit up the Royal Tyrrell museum in Drumheller.
What would you folks suggest as must-see stops along the way? Campsites, lunch stops, places we could spend fifteen minutes or an hour along the way? We'll be visiting a few friends in Winnipeg and either Calgary or Edmonton; there's only about an 80km difference between hitting Ottawa (which my daughter has never seen) vs Abitibi (which neither of us has visited). My current thought is to drive hard at the beginning to get through Ontario and the prairies, and take it a bit slower through the west since there's so much natural beauty to see.
I did the same distance, your time line is really tight, if you can extemd it I would. It took me 6 days travelling just at or below speed limit due to a trailer. First night i did campsite but I found setup and take down took so long that the rest of the stops I just slept in the van when tired rather than doing specific night stops. it will be lots of stops with a child. Some highway areas have nothing to stop at and so you will need to plan for these zones. Saskatchewan is boring as hell so hopefully you have car games etc for entertainment. Thunderbay has a Terry Fox historic site, which was a nice rest.
Thanks for this, I'll see what I can do about the timeline. Thankfully my daughter travels really well, and yeah, we have games, an dramatised audio version of the chronicles of narnia, a Switch and phones with movies. It'll definitely be a stretch but I think she'll be ok. :)
Hopefully I didn't come across as too negative, I enjoyed the trip, beautiful scenery in Thunderbay, Alberta and BC. Hwy 3 through BC is gorgeous, but slower than Highway 1. Fernie, a small town between BC and Alberta was super friendly people.