Roadtripping with Kids - Alberta to Ontario: Where to Stay

Sleep! I find this is a very easy way to add in extra costs to your trip, mostly if you like the creature comforts and don’t feel like roughing it. When I was 15 my family and I did a cross country Canada road trip as a family, we hauled a 5th wheel and drove from Alberta all the way through to PEI, down to Nova Scotia and then all the way home. It was a trip I really cherish, especially now that my dad has passed.

Obviously this is a very fun way to do it - haul a trailer or have a camper and you are pretty much able to pull off anywhere. Wal-Mart or Home Depot parking lots, campgrounds, roadside turnouts - you’re well set. But - you’re also looking at higher fuel prices, more risk in getting a flat tire or your vehicle breaking down from the wear… you win some and lose some in every scenario.

We no longer have the 5th wheel, nor would we want to haul it that far in the winter. You may think we are crazy. but we are truck camping our way back! As I mentioned in our Pre-Planning write up, Josh and I have done the drive 8 times, and we’ve slept in our vehicle for every single one of those drives. We have never gotten a hotel room. I don’t know what it is, but the fun and mix of hard with sleeping in our vehicle in the cold just feels super exciting to us haha. So that’s our plan!

Now the cool thing is that the backseat of our Avalanche folds down, and we can actually fold down the separator to the box. When we do this, a double thermarest fits in there perfect - at a wedding last fall this is where we slept and it was actually very comfy! It may be a bit snuggly with 2 adults and 2 kids, but in the cold it’ll be good for keeping the warmth between everyone. Something to keep in mind - I would never do this with a $30 Canadian Tire sleeping bag. We’ve invested in good quality, down sleeping bags from MEC (had them for years, they’re a game changer!) and I have never ever been cold in my sleeping bag, right down to -10C outside. We have a few of these sleeping bags for the kids too, but I am going to throw an old down duvet in the back of the truck as well.

On one of our trips - Josh and I made a bed in the back of my old Jimmy, it was super comfy! But the temperature got down to -26 and we had parked beside what we thought was inactive train tracks. So at 2am we awoke in the freezing cold to a train whistling by… needless to say we packed up and hit the road after that. Lesson learned - make sure you’re in a good spot for sleeping. Speaking of….

THE PLACES WE’RE STAYING

Okay one of the hard things about driving back in the end of March is that most provincial campgrounds aren’t open yet. Wal-Mart and Home Depot aren’t ideal at this point, just because we want to be safe with the kids. So I’ve done a lot of research on what is open and where we can actually pull in to sleep for the night. Look it’s not like we’re going to be there for more than 12 hours, all we want is somewhere safe, off the beaten a path a bit and secure enough that we don’t need to worry about someone knocking on our window in the night.

Riding Mountain National Park - Manitoba

This was a super neat find! Originally we had planned to duck down to Calgary, hop on the 1 and head east from there - but with the knowledge that this is a sure spot to stay for the night we are changing our route and heading straight east from where we are, over to Saskatoon and across to this National Park.

It’s a large park with multiple campgrounds located within, they have a few campgrounds that are open for the winter as well as these neat huts you can rent too! There is a heated cookhouse, heated bathrooms with hot water, firewood etc. Downfall - walk in tent sites, we aren’t going to be setting up our tent until the drive back to AB, so we’ll pay for a tent site and set up the truck for sleeping instead. They have snowshoe trails, cross country ski trails and lots of activities in the summer it looks like. A spot for the night is $16.75 - so super low cost, it’s first come, first serve, but I’d be very surprised if it was full in the cold weather.

Sleeping Giant Provincial Park - Ontario

I’m actually not 100% sure if this is open for overnight sleeping in the winter… but we’re going to do it anyways. Here’s the thing - most provincial parks will have ‘day use’ areas that are monitored occasionally during the winter months. So if we are pulling in later into the evening, who’s really going to come knock on our door to tell us to move? We’ll be gone by 5-530am and they won’t even know we were there.

Winging It - Ontario

Yeah, we’re winging this stop. The aim would be to find another provincial park or day use area we can pull off in. We’d be closer to larger city on day 3, and also 3 big days into driving - we’re prepared to get a hotel room this night based on how the kids are feeling. 2 nights sleeping in below 0 temps, driving in the truck, napping in the truck - I can only anticipate how they would be ready for a real bed, room to run around for a decent amount of time, space to get out of the cold and maybe even a pool to jump into! I’ll let you know what we end up doing in our day by day blogs.

And then we arrive at our destination!

You may think it’s not smart to be camping in the cold with kids, but trust me when I say we are well adapted to the cold. We spend a good chunk of time outside each day in the winter, and we’ve spent the money on quality base layers to keep them warm. If you know how to layer kids clothes properly, it’s quite rare they would be cold. The only thing i’m concerned about is their nose, simply because mine gets cold when I sleep outside so obviously theirs would too! If push comes to shove and truck camping doesn’t work, hey that’s alright! We’ll grab a hotel and adjust. That’s the biggest thing about this trip - being adaptable and rolling with the punches.

I think that’s a motto for parenting really.

Cheryl