Tunnel Mountain Village I Campground

Here you are parked on the roads, and you have a little strip of grass next to the road which is your "campsite". We stayed here so we could have a fire, and in return gave up water/sewer. Bad choice. Next time, we are staying in the Trailer Court, which has more space, more hookups, more shade, and is just generally more goodness. We'll use our new propane fire pit for the fire :)

Also note that bugs are a significant factor here. If you're at all sensitive to bugs, come prepared!!

For data, use a T-Mobile Canada roaming plan, which gets you onto Rogers. Cell reception in Banff is AMAZING! Nothing like national parks in the US, which are spotty and crappy.

The good: Lots of trees, feels very remote, but still very close to town. If you like "roughing it", this may be your spot. Clean bathrooms.

The bad: Small spots. Mosquitos. More mosquitos. Noisy campers (every night!). Noisy trains. No hookups.

Stayed in this loop the day it reopened (upgraded facilities). Our site was mostly level, private and shades. Hard to calculate the exact nightly rate - site plus daily park fee plus daily campfire permit fee. The permit fee includes unlimited firewood. Great bathrooms, 2 showers per loop (2 men/2 women). Attentive staff made rounds frequently and took care of any issues (there were a couple of rowdy folks). No hookups it dump station and fresh water. We parked our Class B for the entire time we were there and used the public transit right from campground to get around. Free bus to town. $2 back. We even took bus to Lake Louise where parking is nearly impossible unless you are there by 6am. Downloaded Roam transit app to our phone and purchased fares as we needed them. We walked through Tunnel Court and Tunnel II. These campgrounds offer hookups. Didn’t care for either. RVs were packed in, parallel parked. Full sun, no privacy. Loved our stay at Tunnel 1. Good walking paths available too! Biking distance to Banff center.

Usually we would avoid campgrounds with 681 campsites like the plague but we wanted to be close to town. We were surprised, the campsites offer some privacy and the loops are spread out. The campground does not feel as big as it is. Try and get the outside of a loop.
We visited in September and some of the loops were closed. The campground was not particularly noisy.
Note: even in the shoulder season the wait to register - especially after 4pm- is long.

This is a very nice tree-covered campground option near the town of Banff. While Tunnel Mountain 2 feels like a parking lot, Tunnel Mountain 1 is well laid out so that each campsite has trees for privacy. No electric and the tree allow limited access for solar so power can be a problem for long stays. The campground does have centralized toilets in each loop complete with two showers and bear boxes. The campground also has a centralized public bus stop that allows for easy access to town.

This is a great spot to camp, explore Banff, and see wildlife. Our site had a resident albino squirrel and we were also visited by an elk during our stay. The park employee who checked us in told us that a bear had been spotted several times over the previous weeks but we never spotted him.

The only issue we had with our entire experience in Tunnel Mountain 1 was how long it took to be checked in. We arrived at 8:00PM and it took nearly 30-minutes for us to wait for our turn in the queue to be checked in. Because of the attendants total lack of urgency in her job we quickly realized the reason why it took so long to get through the line.
Verizon (Telus) 1-bar LTE. T-mobile (Bell) 1-bars LTE. The WeBoost really helped shore up the signal. The Banff library also has very good internet speeds.

Tunnel mountain 1 is like what others have described, nice tree lined campsites unlike tunnel mountain 2 which is more like a parking lot with picnic tables close to other campers.

$8 firepit permit gives you all the firewood you need. A self serve area for you to pickup.

Washroom facility is very nice and clean, though some stalls and sinks were blocked off for reduced usage.

2 Sewage dumping spots are available by the entrance but water was turned off so the area was quite filthy.

Train runs near the town so you can definitely hear it especially if you are a light sleeper.

We camped here 8/22/22 - 8/24/22.

We arrived without reservations to signs saying campground full, but we were able to stay 2 nights by site hopping. Each morning we went down to the gate and asked about open sites. With a list in hand we were able to inspect sites that would be adequate for our setup, select one and then pay at the gate.

This HUGE multilooped campground is more geared to tenters and smaller RV's and campers. There are no hookups here. We did see some larger rigs, but local knowledge of this campground is needed to know which sites those are. All sites varied in length, tree branch clearance and levelness. This had more of a campground feel and look with more privacy vs Tunnel Mountain Trailer Court and Tunnel Mountain Village II. It is an older looking campground then the other two.

There is access to hiking and mountain bike trails from the campground. Tables, fire pit, restrooms, showers, dumpstation. There was a fire ban while we were there, so we did not have to pay extra for the permit. With that permit you are allowed all the free self serve wood you want! The public bus to town makes a stop here, the ride to town is free with fare required on the return.

Very nice place for all types of rigs. Lots are separated by a good number trees allowing a somewhat private experience. Not busy early in the week. Fills up during weekend! Clean facilities.

Tunnel 1 for the win! We had to dry camp but it was MUCH better than tunnel 2. we have a lot of Solar so it didn’t even make a dent. tunnel 2 is a parking lot with hook ups. However tunnel 1 was had a BEAUTIFUL spot that both our rig and our friends rigs could park in and create a massive open space for the kids to run around in. It was a little hike to the bus stop but we’ll worth it as we are their first pick up and last drop off.