Is it cheaper to book car or rv rental or just turn up on the day? Vancouver Canada

+1 to ltt

April and early may is not the time for tent camping other than for backcountry skiing and only if you have experience and gear for winter camping. You need a winter tent (NOT cheap), very warm sleeping bag, thick sleeping mat and lots of layers of down/fleece etc. Plus stove and lots of fuel for cooking and heating water. I've had subfreezing nights even in mid May up near Banff NP - and that was not at a very high elevation.

As mentioned, most campsites won't open until mid to late May - those that have early dates may be open but with no services and quite possibly no running water (water pumps are often not turned on until the risk of a freeze is over). If a campsite is shut for the winter, there may or may not be firewood in place yet for the summer.

Remember that in the mountains, April and May is not a time when you can really 'experience the outdoors' unless you are skiing, backcountry skiing or ice climbing. Seasonal roads will be shut, lakes still solidly frozen, higher elevations still snowy well into May and many if not most trails not hikeable. In a warmer spring, you may have some very low elevation hiking options in early May, but generally April and early May in the mountains are for end of season downshill skiing, backcountry skiing on the glaciers and resting up for the summer. Not hiking or walking.

If you want to explore the outdoors, you are best sticking with the coastal areas and lower elevation areas in the south of BC (Penticton etc). It will be warmer there with a lot more options for activities.

I would not suggest taking Greyhound across the country in mid April - not only would be it pretty boring (most of it would be white, flat and dreary), but you run a pretty high risk of encountering nasty weather. You could well end up with an unintended extra night or two somewhere in northern Ontario or the prairies. Flying would be much preferable, and a lot safer.

years ago in my youth tented in a closed prov park temp was minus10 had fun getting the old station wagon out as roads had iced over during the night. your time of year not so bad. a good down filled sleeping bag will do the trick. for greyhound book week ahead to get fares heavily, discounted. lots of discounts, but you have to ask though. bus less than a quarter of airfare. plus on arrival no large cab fare waiting for you? (, as your in the middle of no where.). you can get closer to final, destination by bus. . just let driver know. one time in Australia when I arrived in perth by greyhound , at evening, . driver even dropped me off at the hostel.

beg to differ. that time of year 99% no problem cross country by bus. just tedious but quite doable. done it myself twice, even met up with 70yr old lady. she went from bc to maritimes by herself both ways. as she could not afford the airfare. have munchies and liquids plus a good book to while away the time. have camera ready once near Calgary.? when you arrive you will understand. glk. for bus unless you reserve seat its first come first served for seating.

mrmoto: there are plenty of forestry camp sites that are no problem at all to drive into. They are a nice change from the big provincial parks and are a favourite of young people, who like the zero cost.

The mosquitos in BC (at least in the southern areas) are nothing like in Manitoba, where I grew up. It can vary from year to year, but I have never sprayed myself with bug repellant in BC (lived here 14 years now).

I'm going to rent a car or RV for 2 weeks around British Columbia.

What part(s) of BC would this include - Vancouver Island, up to Prince Rupert, the Okanogan Valley, or essentially Vancouver out to the Canadian Rockies and back?

Whatever, we have done three BC road-trips (Vancouver - Rockies, in autumn) over the years, and I can offer the following:

• definitely rent a modest sedan (presumably with winter tyres)
• it will be too cold for a van
• we always pre-book / pre-pay overseas cars using carhire3000.com
• they are competitive, include insurance, and are good to deal with
• stay in either the excellent YHA hostels or budget motels / airbnb rooms
• definitely fly from the east to Vancouver (it will be much cheaper net)

Without knowing your itinerary, it's hard to offer many destination suggestions, however I would certainly recommend the Icefield Parkway between Jasper and Banff - to my mind the best 200km drive in all North America we've seen. Include three nights at YHA Lake Louise too.

We also really enjoyed Whistler for 2-3 nights, but we were there on a very warm September holiday weekend.

Yes, you should definitely fly....that is a very long trip by bus. If you do a flight search on google flights you will see that now a flight for late April/early May from Toronto to Vancouver is about $370 Canadian. In early January there will be seat sales offered and you should watch for a price of about $250 to be on offer, Tuesday and Wednesday flights are usually the cheapest.

I have usually used Enterprise when I have rented cars in Canada (not that often as we have a car) for the best price and service. What I found is that different locations in the same city will offer different prices, sometimes quite substantially different, for the same time period and vehicle. So it can pay to take a bus/taxi to a different location to save hundreds of dollars.

And when I rented a van one time for a family trip with dog etc., I was watching the price and found that on Sunday nights they would offer lower prices for the same rental in the future, from the price offered two days earlier. That was with Avis car rental, don't know if others are like that. But if you have the time and inclination it can pay to shop around.

You will not get winter tires on a rental from Vancouver. The snow tire restriction is from October 1 to March 31 every year.

Good reminder about rental car price differentials ... and we use that carhire3000.com website to make comparisons between airport / downtown / suburban pick-up locations, for a given car and dates. Enterprise is one of the operators they broker for as well.

We have used rentalcars.com for some years now and have been able to get good rates.

Avoid making any changes to the booking - this is inconvenient. More importantly, don't return the car late - you will pay a lot more for the extra time.

Avoid making any changes to the booking - this is inconvenient.

Do you mean once you're on the road?

We've found with years of rentalcars.com / carhire3000.com that making amendments prior to travel is pretty straightforward, and is fairly risk-free, unless your new dates are in a higher price market. And check your car(s) for pre-existing dents and scratches.

Making changes prior to picking up the car is not a big problem (although if left late can result in confusion). As long as you sort out the plan when picking up the vehicle it's OK. Once on the road, it can be a challenge, although once again, fixable. The trick is avoiding simply rolling up a day late at the end of the rental, in which case the extra day is charged at the full (i.e. maximum) rate.