One of the richest fossil sites on the planet, two hours east of Calgary. More than 300 complete dinosaur skeletons have come out of this valley and gone to museums around the world. Your ticket includes the guided tour into the part of the park most visitors never see.
Pick your date below. Two pickups in Calgary, and your ticket covers the coach, park admission and the Explorers Bus Tour into the Natural Preserve.
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Cancel 14 or more days before you go and you get 90% back.
Choose your own adventure: we drop you off, and the bus picks you up in the same spot.
A short, flat walk on even ground, at your own pace.
This whole region was once an inland sea. Dinosaurs died in the river channels and were buried under layers of sand and mud, and those layers have since eroded away to reveal some of the most extraordinary badlands in North America: towering hoodoos, sculpted coulees, and ground that genuinely looks like another planet.
More than 300 complete dinosaur skeletons have been pulled out of this valley. Museums all over the world display them. Palaeontologists are still finding bone here from the Late Cretaceous, and on the guided tour you walk right up to it.
The Explorers Bus Tour runs about two hours, with four stops where you get off to look at fossils, formations and landscape up close. You may get to place a protective casting on a fossil, exactly the way people do in the field. The stories come with it: the Blackfoot nation, who called the hoodoos matapiiski, meaning the people, the fossil hunters who arrived in the 1880s, and the palaeontologists working here now.
After that the day is yours. The Badlands Interpretive Trail is 1.3 km and easy, with panels the whole way. The Trail of the Fossil Hunters is 0.9 km and worth walking with your eyes down. Or climb a hoodoo, wander a coulee, or sit in the Visitor Centre theatre out of the sun.
Seventy-five million years of geological time, on display, in one afternoon.
One stop, in the park, and the guided tour leaves from it.
We pick you up
On the Stampede grounds. The first pickup of the morning, so it leaves earliest.
We pick you up
By the Anderson LRT station in the south of the city, on the Red Line.
A UNESCO World Heritage Site in the Alberta badlands, known for the terrain and for the fossils. The day has two halves: the guided Explorers Bus Tour into the Natural Preserve, then several hours to explore whatever appeals.
Good to know:
Facilities: Visitor Centre with interactive exhibits and a theatre, Cretaceous Café for cold drinks, Five self-guided hiking trails
Note: Digging is not permitted anywhere in the park, to protect the sites. Looking, and on the tour touching, very much is.
We drop you back
The bus calls at both pickup points on the way back, so you get off where you got on.
This is our estimated return time, not a guarantee. Traffic can change it and some trips do run late, so please leave yourself some room afterwards rather than booking something tight against it.
A hot, dry, exposed day in the badlands with a café but no shop.
This is one of Alberta's warmest and driest regions in midsummer, and there is very little shade out in the badlands.
Bring more water than you think, a hat and sunscreen. The upside is that the badlands look their most dramatic in harsh light.
Included: round trip transport from Calgary, park admission, and the Explorers Bus Tour into the Palaeontological Preserve with a Parks Alberta interpreter.
Not included: meals and snacks, and any extra activities beyond the bus tour. The hiking trails are free. Some additional guided hikes can be booked on site separately.
Children of all ages are welcome on the guided tour, infants included. Under 14s must be with a paying adult.
Fair warning: a dinosaur-obsessed child may not want to leave.
This one runs on a handful of dates a season, in partnership with Dinosaur Trips. When none are showing, the season has either not opened or has finished.
Placeholder dates · the real ones come from our booking system
We're Canada's outdoor bus service. Since 2010 we've taken more than 300,000 people to parks and trails without a car. You bring a hat. We handle everything else.
The Explorers Bus Tour takes you deep into the Natural Preserve, which is the part of the park you cannot enter without a guide. Most visitors never see any of it.
Four stops, off the bus each time, at places where bone is eroding out of the hillside. You can touch bone that has been buried for 75 million years.
Somebody who knows the geology, the palaeontology and the human history: the Blackfoot nation, the fossil hunters of the 1880s, and the people still digging here.
Several hours of free time after the tour. Five self-guided trails, outdoor fossil displays along the loop road, a Visitor Centre with a theatre, and hoodoos to scramble on.
★★★★★ 4.6/5.0 on Google
All stops enable guests ample time to explore the destination. This is a highly a good idea trip for those that appreciate spending time in nature minus distractions.OnAir48444 · Tripadvisor · Oct 2025
This is a great service if you don't have a vehicle or just don't want to drive. I'm so happy to have discovered this. There will definitely be more Parkbus trips in my future!James Taylor Wilson · Happy Parkbus customer
Came with my friend in April, our guide Mike did a great job! Nice tour, small group, everything was great! Will go again!Natalia N. · Tripadvisor · Jul 2025
Factor in the cost of gas, parking and renting a car, it's a lot cheaper than taking a personal vehicle.Toronto Star
Parkbus is a great option for nature lovers, whether it's a day trip or overnight camping getaway.The Globe and Mail
Cancel more than 14 days before departure and you get a 90% refund, with 10% withheld for payment processing. Inside 14 days refunds are not available, except for a medical emergency in the 48 hours before departure, which needs a signed doctor’s note within 14 days of the missed trip and returns 50%. Tickets are transferable: you can change the passenger name up to 48 hours before departure.
If Parkbus cancels a trip, you get a full refund. We decide no later than 48 hours before departure and only on confirmed conditions: the park closed or the park authority asking us to stand down, an evacuation order or alert, an area restriction order, the highway closed, or the trip judged unsafe to run. A forecast is not one of those things, and trips run rain or shine.
Bring a hat, water and sturdy shoes. We handle the two hours of prairie in each direction.