My wife and I recently had the exceptional opportunity to go on a camping trip in Canada. We visited friends there and they took us on a trip: they travelled with their motor home and we camped with their Ford F150 and caravan. 

We camped at three different parks in the Rocky mountains in Alberta. Although is was during their summer, the mountain tops were still covered with snow, but the day temperatures were comfortable in te mid twenties. We visited the most beautiful lakes in the mountains.

The Canadians, like most people in Europe, spend most of their time inside their vans – even during summer. Our friends being ex-South Africans enjoy their braais outside and on one occasion a few Afrikaans friends joined us and we even made a potjie! 

During our visit the country celebrated “Canada Day” en Canadian flags could  be seen everywhere. We joined the trend, but with a slight difference.

The vans they use are fully equiped with bathrooms, kitchens with ovens, microwave ovens etc. The larger ones even have electric dish washers, washing machines and tumble dryers. Thanks to slides (side panels sliding out) there is ample room for full scale living room furniture etc. Note the flat screen, hifi and fireplace!

All the double beds are queen or even king size.
The vans are equiped with grey and black water tanks which have to be drained (“dumped”) regularly. Some camps  have dumping facilities on each site (“Full hook-ups”), but others camps have central dumping facilities. 

The camping sites are rather small and close to each other. 

Our friends even took us to visit a glazier. Yes, we walked on a glazier!

This was a once in a lifetime experience for us. We enjoyed the lovely scenery of the country and saw beautiful mountains, lakes, towns, wild life (even bears), etc. Our friends went out of their way to make this holiday as pleasant as possible.

Adri van Staden.