Camping at Gold Springs

We finally experienced our first Canadian camping adventure, and it was wonderful!

We have been working hard over the last few weeks to gather all our camping equipment for our first weekend out and we were so excited to head off to Gold Springs for a long weekend.

Gold Springs is a private camp site located south of Lethbridge on the Milk River in southern Alberta – it’s just 10km from the Canada/US border, so about a three-hour drive from Calgary. It’s a pretty campsite with the river on one side and a u-shaped little man-made lake on the other. There are a few small beaches along the lake side and the site offers lots of water activities, fishing, lovely walks, and a great playground for the kids.

Southern Alberta is known for its wind and the day we arrived it was pumping gales and we could hardly pitch our tent – it was horrid and we wondered if we should just give up before we’d even begun. Thankfully, the wind soon died down and we were able to get settled.

This was our first time taking the girls camping and we were quite nervous about how it would go, but we really had nothing to worry about. They had an absolute blast – the minute we arrived, they saw the playground and were off! Within minutes they had made a little friend and they had so much fun exploring, playing and running around. We could see the playground from our site, so it was so lovely to sit and relax while the kids played. We also enjoyed spending time by the water and there was such a lovely atmosphere with families all enjoying the beautiful sunshine and relaxation. The evenings were filled with chilling with friends around the campfire and late nights with everyone finally collapsing from exhaustion and all the fresh air.

Gold Springs is a great camp site, but we were only one of about two tent campers – the rest of the campsite was filled with RVs and trailers (and wow, some of these looked like a hotel on wheels they were so fancy!), and we’d definitely say this site is more suited to RV and trailer campers. The gravel on the sites is hard and sharp, so not ideal to pitch a tent. There are some nice trees around the site, but we felt very exposed in our tent, with no privacy and very little shade. If we come back here, we definitely would want to do so with a trailer – something we are hoping to buy in the not-too-distant future.