What a beautiful landscape... as a tourist it is the money shot that we all want to get; a picturesque day in the rockies, warm with a slight breeze, you left the city life behind you in Calgary to come out to serene Banff National Park.
That's lovely, but how was your trip to Calgary? Were you overwhelmed by homeless on Stephen Avenue or did you unfortunately pay $9 for a beer?
Calgary is a troublesome spot to be a tourist or even just
new to the city. Many of us do not associate this because we live here, we have
cars, we own bikes, or live in Mission therefore a stones throw to most of
Calgary’s goings on. We know where to go.
I have seen first hand the frustration tourists have with hotel locations either out of the city or in the centre, but with proximity to only expensive restaurants and not much nightlife. Don’t even get me
started on being a backpacker staying at the two hostels Calgary is “fortunate”
enough to have in some questionable locations. There remains a huge lack of
information surrounding what is actually fun to do in the city of White Hats. You can really only go
to the tower once and loop Stephen Ave five times before you beg for your trip
to Banff to come sooner.
So my proposition is to give Non-Calgarians, tourists, and
newcomers to the city a chance at actually enjoying their time in our expanding city. I
don’t know if it’ll be much easier on the old wallet, but it will at least have
you leaving Calgary with a smile on your face and some good times to reminisce about.
I think we need to start
at some basics, Calgary culture.
Calgary has always been the busy city of the west. Oil and
gas corporations set the tone for downtown, which makes it thriving during the
day but Calgary’s immense urban sprawl issue has created a scarcity in the core after hours. Traffic jams and road rage are a prominent symptom of this suburban
lifestyle.
So Calgary has done an excellent job in the last few years
in creating atmosphere closer to the city centre. Although, on a Sunday,
Monday and Tuesday after sunset downtown feels like a zombie apocalypse, it is the peripheral communities where you will find local Calgarians milling about.
That’s what I’ll focus on in the next few blogs, with actual
advice of where to go and what to do in different areas of the city depending on what season you're visiting, budget and how you're traveling.
Welcome to my blog!
Jacqui (I wish I were traveling so I made a blog about it) Reader
