Having heard numerous raving comments about how beautiful Banff and the enclosing Banff National Park, a summer resort town in the province of Alberta, we planned a five day trip to this place. It is about 128 km/80 miles from the nearest airport in Calgary where we landed.
We made this trip in the beginning of August. We were fortunate that the weather was great on all the days with no rain and not too hot for hiking, and the places we visited although popular, were not too crowded either. We rented a spacious Airbnb (accommodating seven of us) for the four nights, in the town of Canmore which was about 20 minutes south of downtown Banff.
Given that the attractions are spread around a large area, and that we had to come in from Calgary, we drove around in the rental car visiting a number of places. The places that we visited could be completed in 4 days, if you are able to reach Calgary at an earlier time as you arrive into Calgary. I should say that we spaced ourselves between attractions and tried not to pack our day with too much to do.
We landed Calgary in the afternoon and after renting a car, drove to Banff and reached there by early evening.