I mainly know Banff and Waterton but having lived in both places I know them pretty well. Glacier national park is %100 worth the trip as well as Waterton which is on the Canadian side. It’s smaller and filled with easy rewarding hikes as well as longer day trip type hikes. For Banff, public transit is pretty good and definitely encouraged because trying to find parking at some spots is a lost cause. For example when people ask me about getting to Moraine lake I tell them that parking is full between 7 am and 7 pm. There are shuttles that go from Banff to lake Louise and then more shuttles that take you around Lake Louise. We have a parking lot on the highway for when all the government parking in town fills up and they shuttle people from the parking lot literally on the highway. Roam is the public transit in Banff and it takes you to plenty of places outside of the actual townsite as well as Canmore. I’ll get back to this more about hikes in the area and Waterton if you decide to head that way. I don’t know Glacier as well but I can tell you a lot about Waterton.
Thanks for the suggestions ! After rethinking about it, I will stick to the Jasper-Banff area (there is a lot to do there and if I can save some time from going back and forth from National Parks, I will be able to do more backcountry hikes.
That’s fair, Waterton is pretty out of the way but also my favourite place on earth so I have to push it on everybody. What are you thinking for accommodations ? Things fill up fast because this is the busy season so if you are looking at hotels/hostels you should work on nailing down a few solid dates. Being spontaneous is alright too, some random homeless people camped in the trees behind my place for like 2 nights but I think 8-9 and somebody would have said something. I serve a lot of people who randomly end up at the hotel when they planned to be camping because the campsight filled up.