Canada's National Parks Are Free This Summer. Here's How to Actually Do Them Right.
Canadian camping mug — a sturdy, outdoors-ready enamel cup perfect for coffee by the campfire or tea on a mountain trail.
From June 19 through September 7, 2026 every Canadian national park is free to enter.
You've been saying you want to do Canada. This is your sign to stop saying it and start planning it.
From June 19 through September 7, every Canadian national park is free to enter. Camping discounts are included. That's the entire summer — Banff, Jasper, Bay of Fundy, Gros Morne — all of it, no entry fee. This window comes around once in a while and it's genuinely worth building a trip around.
Here's where to go, what most people miss, and what you need to know before you book.
BANFF NATIONAL PARK — Alberta The one everyone knows. Go anyway.
Banff gets the crowds and it deserves them. The Canadian Rockies here are a completely different scale than anything you've hiked in the US — the kind of landscape that makes you recalibrate what you thought you knew about mountains. Lake Louise looks fake in photos and somehow even more surreal standing in front of it.
But here's what most people miss: get off the Icefields Parkway and into the backcountry. The Skoki Loop is three to four days through alpine meadows and high passes with almost no one on it. Sunshine Meadows in July has wildflowers at elevation that will stop you mid-sentence.
Don't miss: Moraine Lake at sunrise — before 7am. Every minute after that, it belongs to the tour buses.
Real talk: Campsite reservations open months in advance and sell out in minutes. Set an alarm. Be ready.
JASPER NATIONAL PARK — Alberta Banff's quieter, bigger neighbor. Less Instagram. More actual wilderness.
Jasper is twice the size of Banff and gets a fraction of the visitors. The Skyline Trail — 44km, two to three days, entirely above treeline — is one of the best backpacking routes in North America. You're on the ridge the whole time. The views don't let up.
The Icefields Parkway connecting Banff and Jasper is 230km of the most dramatic road on the continent. Drive it slowly. Stop constantly. The Athabasca Glacier is retreating faster every year — it's worth seeing while it's still there.
Don't miss: Maligne Lake and Spirit Island. Rent a canoe. Go early.
Real talk: Jasper town is small. Accommodation books out fast. Cell service in the backcountry is unreliable — just what you need.
West Brook Pond
Canada’s own glacier carved fjord. Moose, mountains and waterfalls on either side. Hot tip: take the boat tour and get a seat up top.
BAY OF FUNDY — New Brunswick / Nova Scotia The highest tides on earth. Twice a day.
My husband is an earth science teacher. I'm a lifelong nature lover. Between the two of us, we knew exactly what the Bay of Fundy was before we got there. And it still stopped us cold.
We walked the ocean floor at low tide on a month-long camper van trip through the Maritimes — photographed the rock formations, the carved-out walls, the mud flats. Stood (and sunk) in places that felt solid and permanent. Came back a few hours later and every single spot we'd been standing in was underwater. Not by inches. By feet.
There's a weird chill that comes over you in that moment. Like — imagine if we hadn't known. Imagine if we'd stayed. It's the kind of thing that makes you feel the actual power of the earth in your body, not just your brain. Isn't this planet just so friggin cool?
Hopewell Rocks. Fundy Trail Parkway. Tidal bore rafting at Moncton. All of it is worth it. But nothing prepares you for standing somewhere dry and coming back to find it gone.
Don't miss: Check the tide charts before you plan anything. The whole experience is built around them.
Real talk: This place will make you feel small in the best possible way. Underrated doesn't even cover it.
We camped primitive for most of this trip — if you want to know exactly where we stayed in the Bay of Fundy area, message me. Happy to share the full list.
GROS MORNE NATIONAL PARK — Newfoundland A landlocked fjord. On an island. In Canada. Just go.
Same camper van trip. And honestly? Newfoundland was my favorite of the whole Maritimes.
There's a roughness to it — coastal, rural, vast, wild, underdeveloped in the best way. A ruggedness that feels true and real. In summer it has this particular beauty that I haven't found anywhere else. You feel like you're somewhere that hasn't been smoothed out for tourists yet.
We did the Western Brook Pond fjord boat tour — 600-metre cliffs rising straight out of the water on both sides, carved by glaciers, completely landlocked. One of those places that makes your inbox feel genuinely irrelevant. Whatever was stressing you out before you got on that boat? Gone.
Then the Tablelands hike. It was hot — like I might become a fried egg hot — but there's a creek running through it that saves you. And the landscape itself is so strange that you almost forget you're hiking. You're walking on exposed mantle rock. The earth's interior, pushed to the surface. It's orange. Nothing grows on it. It looks like Mars and feels like standing on something you weren't supposed to touch.
Both spots do the same thing to you: they make you feel incredibly small, in a way that is an absolute gift. That job with the annoying emails? Completely irrelevant up there.
Don't miss: Western Brook Pond boat tour. The MOOSE.
Real talk: Newfoundland is far. It is worth every hour of travel. Go before everyone else figures it out.
We camped primitive through Newfoundland too — message me if you want the campsite breakdown. It's some of the best free camping I've ever done.
Ready to actually make this happen?
Planning a Canada trip that's worth the flight — one that gets you into the backcountry, not just the parking lot — takes real logistics. Which parks work together as a route. Where to base yourself. What level of fitness each trail actually demands.
That's exactly what I do. I build custom adventure itineraries for women who want to go further than the guidebook takes them — and I know these parks personally.
Free entry this summer is the window. Let's go!
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