I think it is now official. After ten years living in Saskatoon, my favourite road trip destination is Calgary. I can assure you that is not due to the wonderful drive. It is a touch over six hours and after doing it a number of times, describing it as monotonous might be a tad generous. This might be the kind of road trip where the destination compels the journey. Even with good coffee (or road trip appropriate Timmies) and snacks, great company with my wife, and great tunes and podcasts, this drive is a bit of a grind.

On our last visit to Calgary, the drive there was eventful. A couple of very powerful and large thunderstorms made for some white knuckle driving, while a few smaller ones like this one about an hour east of Calgary made for some beautiful scenery.

After a quick nap to shake off the time in the car, we headed to one of our favourite restaurants in the city, the Calcutta Cricket Club. Wonderful Indian-inspired cocktails set a delicious backdrop as plate after plate of Indian dishes hit our table. A perfect first evening in Calgary.

This city is now home to a lot of favourite places that are making it harder to squeeze in new experiences when we visit (what a wonderful challenge to have!). We started an afternoon at Native Tongues Taqueria in the Beltline area and just kept ordering different dishes – special tacos, street corn, tastings of salsas, and a whole lot of margaritas. This place has never failed to deliver a wonderful meal.

In the pantheon of favourite places, in Calgary or really anywhere we have traveled, Shelter Cocktail Bar stands on top. From a tip we received years ago from a server in a favourite Saskatoon restaurant, this has become not only a must visit place, but a “how many times can we visit” place on each trip. From the industrial/gothic interior design to the expertise of their bartenders, this place is amazing. They have a list of cocktails, but they’ll also create ones on the fly from things you are interested in. We have had so many great nights here over the years.

Shelter’s location also makes for a very simple cocktail bar crawl if that is the kind of think you might be into. Just next door there is another wonderful cocktail bar, Proof. They have an amazing happy hour and we have spent hours and hours here over the years as well.

On this trip, my wife ordered a very unique tiki-inspired drink and easily won the best drink of the evening and the coolest drinking glass too. You can tell she was stoked by her selection!

On the Sunday evening of our trip, we headed from there back to Shelter for their all-Sunday night happy hour. The drinks that night kicked off a wonderful evening. The kind of evening where I feel so lucky that I get to do this with my favourite person in the world so often. My drink selections started with a Sazarac, moved into custom cocktails that were “a riff on a Caribbean rum punch” and “something tequila based that would make me want to have the feeling of my feet in the sand”, and a couple more I forgot to take notes about. Getting to laugh a night away with my wife in this manner…. perfection.

For me, no trip to Calgary is complete without hitting a few of my favourite craft breweries. It was patio weather so my wife and I ordered up some drinks at Cabin Brewing (cider for her, a tasting flight of new beers for me) and grabbed one of their board games and headed outside. This game about ranking the misery of various things had us laughing for a couple of hours as we enjoyed a few drinks. I love how an afternoon can fly by when you’re laughing it away on a patio.

Calgary now has a perfect template for a vacation for an extended long weekend. Brave the road trip (my wife’s snack packing expertise is a huge plus for this), then a nice hotel, great food, cocktail bars each evening and lots of being lazy together. It all makes the long drive back home worth it.