Even though our winters can be cool here (that’s one of the reasons we love to travel so much in winter), when we’re home in Canada we still love to get out and about in the snow, whether it’s stargazing in Jasper, Alberta or traveling in the winter. Being outdoors in the cold means that we need to do whatever we can to minimize getting chilled and uncomfortable, including wearing the right winter gear.

As Canadians, Charles and I know all about cold winter weather. Growing up, Charles lived near Winnipeg, Manitoba. Winnipeg is known to be the coldest major city in Canada with recorded lows pushing close to -40. That’s so cold it’s the same in Celsius or Fahrenheit!

Just how cold can it get Winnipeg? Well, while the thermometer might rarely show lower than -30, with windchill it can easily hit well into the -40’s. Check out this video of The New Travel on YouTube throwing boiling water in the air with a -41 windchill.

I grew up near Calgary, Alberta, right on the edge of both the Rocky Mountains and the Canadian prairies, so it’s safe to say that we’re both well acquainted with blowing snow and freezing temperatures.

Today we live in the interior of British Columbia, which has one of Canada’s warmest winter climates, but we can still get down to around -20 or -25 °C for a few days here and there every winter and we often head home for the Christmas holidays so we get to deal with their cooler temperatures as well.

Now just imagine the kind of clothing and gear you’ll need to stay warm in Canada’s winters, from the freezing temperatures you’ll see in the prairies and the far North, to the milder winter temperatures of Vancouver and the rest of British Columbia.

How to Stay Warm When It’s Cold Outside: Products we love

Here are some of our favorite products to help stay warm in the cold.

Heated Jackets

We just discovered heated jackets this year. Where have they been all our lives?

A heated jacket uses the electricity from a power bank tucked away in a pocket that runs along strips of carbon fibers that are spaced across the jacket, warming up the fibers. The strips of fibers are flexible enough to allow normal movement.

In the past month, we’ve been trying out a heated jacket from Venustas. Overall, we’re really happy with how warm it keeps us at around 0 degrees Celsius (32 degrees Fahrenheit), but we’ll have to wait for later in the winter to test our heated jacket in the colder months of January and February.

We tried out the Men’s Heated Jacket 5V with Detachable Hood, in black in the men’s medium size. It has a nice fitted design and is comfortable to wear. It has 3 levels of heat you engage with a cool looking colored LED button on the jacket to easily change temperatures while on the go.

Single Use, Air Activated Hand Warmers

Disposable handwarmers are fantastic for popping inside your gloves or a pocket if you’re not moving around a lot. We keep a few of these in our car for emergencies, and keep some with our winter gear at all times.

These handwarmers were wonderful for keeping our fingers and toes toasty when sitting in a barely heated ice rink, while our kids were taking skating lessons.

Our top pick: Hot Hands Hand Warmers

Rechargeable Hand Warmers

If you blinked in the last few years you probably missed that rechargeable hand warmers have become a huge hit in northern climates.

Essentially, a rechargeable handwarmer is a battery bank that radiates heat into your hand or in a pocket. They can last up to 15 hours under ideal conditions, and it’s a relatively affordable alternative that seems more environmentally friendly than disposable hand warmers.

Beskar rechargeable hand warmer

If you like the idea of battery operated rechargeable hand warmers or a heated jacket, well then you’re in luck, because you can get battery operated heated touques (or beanies, for you in the USA and other non-Canadians), socks, mitts and probably even heated underwear at this point.

Base Layers and Long Underwear

Long gone are the days when base layers meant only heavy thick long underwear famously known for the flap in the bottom.

Today’s base layers can be made of some pretty technical materials, or even quality, natural fibers like merino wool.

Wool is always a great choice as a warm base layer, since it dries easily and wicks moisture from the body. Since wool is anti-microbial and also resists smells, so you can even wear it multiple days.

Unbound merino wool bottoms.

When choosing a good base layer fabric outside of wool, it’s important to make sure that it includes the following:

Breathability: The fabric should allow perspiration to escape, keeping you cool and comfortable and not damp or wet.

Lightweight – Easier to pack and carry and also helps keep you mobile whether walking, working or playing.

High wicking – The fabric needs to wicks moisture away from the skin, ideally keeping you dry and comfortable over the course of the day.

Quick drying – The faster the fabric dries, the quicker you can wear it again and the easier it is to wash while on the go.

Isothermic – Having densely packed fibres can help to retain heat & warmth without adding a lot of extra bulk.

Touques, Ear Muffs and Scarves

While the old wives tale that said we lose 80% of our heat through our head has been thoroughly debunked, it is true that once we’re all covered up our head becomes our greatest weakness. The best way to remedy head heat loss in winter is to pick up a touque or a beanie, preferably something made out of wool or a warm, breathable fabric.

C.C Thick Cable Knit Faux fur fleece lined winter hat

If you want to be really warm, grab a trapper hat. Every rural Canadian I’ve ever met has owned at least one trapper hat.

mysuntown Trapper Hat

If you hate getting your hair messy but have cold sensitive ears, then a solid pair of ear muffs are a great investment. Unisex, lightweight and easy to pack, they’re prefect to take on the go or leave in your car.

Metog Unisex Foldable Ear Warmers

While scarves aren’t as popular today as they once were, nothing beats the versatility of a warm scarf. From impromptu head covering to face shield to neck and sun protection the humble scarf can do it all and look good doing it. For winter, go with a heavier material and you won’t have any complaints.

Winter boots

We’ve been long time fans of SOREL boots for extremely cold weather (-15 Celsius and under). Charles got a pair of SOREL’s older style winter boots over 20 years ago. They’ve held up perfectly, and he wears them whenever it’s very cold outside or he needs grip on icy walkways.

However, the only issue with the SOREL boots that he has is that they’re quite heavy so they’re not great for everyday wear. These SOREL Men’s Glacier XT are very similar to those boots Charles bought 20 years ago, and still uses.

SOREL has some great new styles that are much more lightweight. I’ve been eyeing up these women’s SOREL Tofino II boots for a while; they get great reviews.

Our daughter really loves her Kamik Momentum winter boots.

She’s been wearing them for a couple of years now, because they’re a nice mix of warm and comfortable. She’s found that they’re perfect for our climate here in the interior of BC.

She’s still growing, so she had a pair of white Kamik Momentums for a couple of years, and switched to a dark grey this year when she grew out of them. They have a plenty of other colors, including burgundy, blue, and red.

Wool blanket

We keep a wool blanket in our car at all times. In the summer, it’s fantastic for impromptu picnics and sitting on the grass, and cool nights camping and sitting around the fire. In the winter, the wool blanket gives us an extra layer of warmth over our laps in hockey rinks and the kids will often pull it out on cool days in the backseat of our car, and it’s a fantastic to have in case of emergency as well.

We’ve had our wool blanket so long that we’ve entirely forgotten where we picked it up. That said, you can pick up a perfectly good wool blanket for under $40. Wool’s fantastic because it resists smells, and helps wick moisture from the body.

Our pick: The Arcturus Military Wool Blanket

Arcturus Military Wool Blanket is a nice size at 64″ x 88″, and weighs only 4.5 pounds. It comes in olive green, navy, charcoal grey, and a lighter military grey.

Like this article? Check out how to stay cool when it’s warm outside for some fun summer tips.

This winter we decided to make it a work season. We usually enjoy celebrating Canada’s coldest season simply by not being here. Hockey lovers, skiers, snowboarders, snowmobilers, cross country skiing lovers and all those other winter pastime people are pretty much crazy in our minds. Sure, if you’re stuck here anyway you should make the most of it and provided the weather is nice all of those can be quite enjoyable. We however, would much rather be just about anywhere else during the season of snowstorms, windchill warning days and “the greyness” as we like to call it.

Kamloops actually gets a lot of sunshine compared to Vancouver and the lower mainland however we’ve found this winter to be abnormally bad. To be honest it’s the main reason we don’t live in Vancouver or the coast right now. No matter the temperature, if we can’t see the sun we don’t do well. Vancouverites will usually disagree and say that the warmer temperature is worth it and you usually only need a light jacket (correction, rain jacket) to get around most of the year. Though I could go on about that all day, this post isn’t about that.

As I was saying earlier Micki and I decided that we would stay in Kamloops for the winter this year. Cole is really enjoying his friends in Grade 1 and we decided to put some money away for our next awe-inspiring adventure. Micki had a nice contract in place and we rented a nice house in a nice part of town. Kamloops is great in that it has almost every amenity and store you could want but due to it’s size you can pretty much get anywhere in under 20 minutes. Kamloops also has the distinction that it has water access, is surrounded by mountains and that we can get to 4 different lakes within 30 minutes door to door in the summer. It’s also on the Coquihala and is only 3 hours from Vancouver and less than 2 to Kelowna.

Since we were trapped here for the winter and Micki’s contract was scheduled until May we decided that a short warm vacation was in order. I’ve posted about our love of the quickie all inclusive 1 or 2 week all inclusive vacation before and we were thinking that we would just do one this year. There’s nothing we love more than spending months on the road really getting to know a place and it’s people however this year we didn’t have the time or luxury. It’s almost sad that when our bank account is at it’s highest we’re landlocked to a desk.

I shudder to think what other travel bloggers think of all inclusive resorts but frankly I just don’t care. After months of making meals, cleaning up after 2 young kids and generally following a boring pattern of day to day living the thought of premade meals and buffets with something everyone can agree on without having to lift a finger or spend an extra dime sounded quite appealing. It wasn’t our 6 month travel plan of last winter but it would go a long way to making winter living tolerable. Besides, all you can drink fruity alcohol concoctions is a reason in itself for all inclusive travelling and my poor liver has been unemployed for far too long.

So that all being said, we started our search for the best deal. Around that time we had been talking with some friends from Calgary about going on a joint holiday together. They were some of our closest friends while we lived in Calgary and to be honest we haven’t spent nearly enough time with them these past few years. As all great adventures start, this one started with a “Hey, we should all go to Hawaii” post a few months previous on Facebook. We didn’t think they were serious but it turned out they were ready and willing to go.

When we touched base next it became a plan of sorts to head out together towards the end of January. As a group we discussed other possible locations but it sounded like we were the only ones wanting to do a Mexican or Caribbean all inclusive holiday. After a few more days our dreams of being served free Margarita’s by a pool evaporated. In it’s place was the one location we had all originally commented on, Hawaii.

Micki had been there years before she had ever met me but for everyone else we were Hawaiian newbies. It’s always been on my list of places to see (and hell maybe even a possible future home) however I always thought I’d go for a few months, check out a few of the islands and then decide how much I liked the place. That definitely wasn’t happening on this trip though it was an excellent double opportunity to “get my feet wet” as the saying goes.

Within a few weeks we had agreed that we were heading to Waikiki. Definitely not the best place to get a true island feel but for the 10 days that we were going it would serve quite nicely as a base for touring the island of O’ahu. One of the nicest things about Waikiki and Honolulu was that it was direct flight from Bellingham, Washington. Bellingham is actually a little closer to us than the Vancouver airport and it has the added benefit that we don’t need to pass through TSA with the kids which is always a hassle. Instead, we could cross the border hours before take off in the comfort of our SUV. That really appealed to all of us. Unfortunately, things never go quite as smoothly as planned while travelling…

The first problem was that Micki’s contract ended somewhat abruptly right before Christmas. She had another 4 months to go however the company decided to let go of any contractors not working on mission critical projects. Unfortunately, she was working with several teams at the time and was therefore not in the right group. Financially it wasn’t a big deal for us however we had to make the call whether a short, rather expensive vacation for the amount of days travelling was worth it. It wasn’t so much that we didn’t want to go to Hawaii but now we had the opportunity to go for a much longer time for not a lot of extra money.

One of the first things we learnt while travelling was that the longer you go, the cheaper it is relative to staying home. Of course it costs more when you include lost income but for the most part, rent, food and transportation are the biggest costs while you travel. Whether you stay for a week or a month the airfare doesn’t really change. Insurance will cost a little more but if you’re fit and healthy insurance doesn’t cost that much to begin with. The cost of staying in a nice hotel for a week is fairly similar to renting a decent condo for a month and the condo has the added plus that you can make your own meals. The cost of eating 3 restaurant meals a day for a week is probably more than self catering in a condo for a month and even if the price was more you would still need to eat regardless if you were on vacation or at home.

We got an amazing price for all of us to fly out of Bellingham but right from the start we knew that this would be one of our most expensive trips minute for minute. When every minute that Micki took off equalled a minute of not getting paid it made sense to do a quick,  adventure packed, expensive mini vacation since we would be getting the most for our buck. Once the gravy train was derailed though, 10 days in paradise looked like a money losing proposition.

In the end, we opted to keep to the plan anyway. There were just too many reasons to change it at that point. The biggest were that we were looking forward to spending time with our friends, it would have cost a premium to change our flight plan, we would have had to do something with our cat for the month, the place we’re renting in Kamloops is costing us decent coin to begin with, etc, etc, etc…

By booking a few months in advance, we ignored one of our principal traveling mantra’s. To never book too early or lock ourselves in too tightly. I know a lot of people think differently and plan months and sometimes even years in advance. A lot of time they’ll quote you how much they saved by booking early or how it guaranteed them so and so and how it gave them such piece of mind not having to worry about it. Knowing that we’re locked into something so far in advance has the opposite effect on us. We see it as a limitation. By booking too early we’re forcing ourselves into committing to a set agenda that may or may not be relevant in two or 6 months from then. More often than not changing or cancelling a reservation can have serious costs associated with it.

For the most part this mantra has proven effective for us. There were a few times  (like looking for a place to sleep around Christmas holidays in New Zealand a few years back that almost left us sleeping in our car for a few days) where it would have lessened our stress if we’d booked ahead but on the whole I think we’ve done well. Of course, you have to realize that we’re not pack animals. Usually when the herd heads right we head left. If we were planning to hit Mardi Gras or someplace specific at a time when we knew it would be crazy busy we would of course book ahead. Hawaii in late January would have been busy but not on the scale of too busy if you get my meaning.

So now that we had confirmed our travel plans, there wasn’t much more to do than wait for our trip to get here and do a little reading on all O’ahu had to offer. It was shaping up to be a nice trip and we were looking forward to sitting on a beach and having a long catch up with good friends. The biggest hurdle we had yet to face was the Coquihalla.

For any of you that aren’t familiar with this area, the Coquihalla is a section of highway created years ago to speed the travel of those wanting to get to the west coast a little quicker. Because it wasn’t considered a necessary highway and basically took you a similar route as Highway #1 (the Trans Canada highway) when they built the road they chose to finance it’s construction using tolls. Though toll highways are fairly common in the states, there aren’t that many in Western Canada. Though the  toll was removed a few years ago, the Coquihalla is still there and is the quickest way west. In winter, it’s also known as one of the most dangerous routes in Canada.

We knew from what we’ve read and from people we’ve met that the road can get a little treacherous in the winter time. With that in mind we watched the weather network religiously the week leading up to our departure. There was bad weather coming a few days before and a few days after but up until we left we were to have a nice ride to Bellingham. We were always ready to leave a day earlier if it looked like the weather would go sour but thanks to 3 different weather sites we would be in the clear.

That was totally true right until the point we woke up to see a winter wonderland the morning of our departure. Well, it would have been a winter wonderland scene if we could have seen farther than the end of our driveway. Kamloops was in a full on blizzard! Everything was booked by now and we needed to leave regardless of the weather if we even had a hope of making our flight. With that in mind, we got the car and kids ready (as well as a ton of extra winter wear in case things went sour) and took off. That was minutes after I severely twisted my knee on the ice while chatting up our neighbor less than a minute from pulling out of the driveway.

Between the blizzard and my swollen knee it was an interesting departure. Now as I look back I see similarities between this and our crazy Philippine departure a few years ago. That time we got t-boned on the way to the airport during a freak blizzard that wasn’t supposed to exist either. That is an epic post I should talk about someday but getting back to this trip I’ll just say that we made it to Bellingham in one piece with an extra hour to spare.

It was a nightmare of a drive I have to say though. We literally saw two accidents happen right before our eyes as well as at least 4 other vehicles sitting in a snowbank. We hit snow, ice, sleet, black ice, freezing rain, driving rain, regular rain and even hail in those 3 and a half hours it took to get to the border. At one point we were literally pushing snow with our bumper. I’m glad we took the 4×4 and not our car otherwise I’m doubtful we would have made it.

I’ll be posting our adventures in Hawaii and Waikiki in the next few posts but I’ll leave you with a few lessons I learnt from this adventure:

1. Never book too early or over commit yourself without knowing all the costs.

2. Don’t drive the Coquihalla during a snowstorm.

3. Never trust a weather forecaster