In a nutshell
- Edmonton is located in the Canadian province of Alberta on the North Saskatchewan River, not far from the Rocky Mountains — best known for the massive West Edmonton Mall and its vibrant festival scene.
- We visited Edmonton ourselves, explored it firsthand, and are sharing the top things to do and our best restaurant picks with you.
- You’ll also find carefully selected hotel recommendations for every budget.
- We’ll tell you how to get around Edmonton and everything you need to know before you go — including our honest verdict on whether it’s worth the trip.
Getting There: How to Get to Edmonton
We flew to Edmonton with Icelandair.
Icelandair offers competitively priced flights with a stopover in Reykjavik — and the flight times are pretty reasonable too.
The best part about Icelandair: you can make a stopover in Iceland for up to seven days at no extra charge, letting you discover Iceland and Canada on a single trip.
Seven days is definitely enough time to see the most important highlights in Iceland.
Other options include Condor via Seattle, Air Canada via various Canadian cities, or KLM via Amsterdam. Unfortunately, there are no direct flights to Edmonton from Europe.
To find the cheapest flights, we always use the Skyscanner flight search engine.
Our Hotel Picks: Where to Stay in Edmonton?
Where you stay in Edmonton depends on what you want to do in the city.
These are the hotels we recommend:
Things to Do in Edmonton
Edmonton isn’t the kind of city where you’re overwhelmed trying to decide which attractions you absolutely have to see — there simply aren’t that many. That said, Edmonton does have a few places worth visiting, and we’ll walk you through all of them here.
Edmonton Downtown
Downtown Edmonton isn’t exactly a major highlight. Plain office towers, streets up to six lanes wide in places, and hardly any people — that’s Downtown Edmonton in a nutshell.
Worth seeing is the Alberta Legislature Building at the southern end of Downtown. Another real eye-catcher is the Art Gallery of Alberta at the corner of 102nd Avenue and 99th Street. The building stands out with its striking architecture among the drab office towers, and inside there are fascinating, regularly rotating exhibitions.
You can actually walk through Downtown Edmonton without ever setting foot on the street. The 13-kilometer Pedway system connects numerous buildings through tunnels and enclosed pedestrian bridges. That probably explains why the streets of Downtown feel so deserted.
Local Edmontonian Brittney Le Blanc spent half a day showing us the most beautiful corners of her city and even took us to a pretty unusual spot. In the park east of the Alberta Legislature Building, there’s a small circle that looks totally unremarkable — but it’s anything but.
If you stand inside the circle and clap your hands, it squeaks. Sounds weird, but it’s true. If you’re in Edmonton and want to check it out, just use our photo for reference and head to these coordinates — then clap your hands: 53.5328557, -113.5038459.
Edmonton Oilers at Rogers Place
Downtown Edmonton is anything but deserted when the Edmonton Oilers are playing at home. Hockey in Edmonton isn’t just a sport. Hockey is religion!
But hold on — it’s not called “ice hockey”! In North America, the sport is simply called hockey, and what much of the world thinks of as hockey is called field hockey here. If you say “ice hockey” in Canada, people will give you a funny look.
But back to the subject: the Edmonton Oilers are the city’s greatest pride. The Oilers won the Stanley Cup — the NHL championship — five times between 1984 and 1990, and they’re eager to recapture that glory. The greatest and most famous hockey player of all time, Wayne Gretzky, led the Oilers to those five titles, and after many years without a championship, a new messiah has finally been found.
Connor McDavid is considered the greatest hockey talent in the world and is expected to lead the Edmonton Oilers back to glory. In Edmonton, he’s reverently nicknamed McJesus.
Rogers Place, which opened in 2016 right in the heart of Downtown, is considered one of the best hockey arenas in the world, and all 18,000-plus seats are packed for every Oilers game. We were there for the opening game of the 2017/18 NHL season and watched the Oilers win 3–0 at home. Hat trick scorer: Connor McDavid.
You can find ticket information for the games on the Edmonton Oilers website. The NHL season kicks off in early October and runs through May — at least if the Oilers make the playoffs.
Street Art in Edmonton
In 2017, Edmonton hosted the Street Mural Festival for the second time — an event where graffiti artists create massive works of art on the city’s walls.
The street art stays up after the festival, of course, so it’s seriously worth walking through Downtown with your eyes open. A stunning piece of artwork could be hiding around any corner.
Old Strathcona
Old Strathcona is a historic neighborhood about two kilometers south of Downtown Edmonton. Along 82nd Avenue (Whyte Avenue), you’ll find loads of independent shops, galleries, bars, and clubs.
Old Strathcona is Edmonton’s hipster quarter and we liked it much better than Downtown. Still, don’t expect too much. Compared to many European cities, it isn’t all that exciting. Even so, it’s our top pick in Edmonton.
We really loved the Old Strathcona Antique Mall on 78th Avenue at the corner of Gateway Boulevard. Spread across two floors, it’s a massive flea market where you can find the coolest stuff at quite reasonable prices.
Edmonton River Valley
Along the North Saskatchewan River, Edmonton is home to the largest contiguous park system in North America.
Throughout the River Valley, there are many beautiful vantage points with stunning views over the valley and of Edmonton’s skyline.
We did an e-bike tour along the River Valley that gave us a completely different perspective on the city.
If you want to explore the River Valley, this is definitely the best way to do it. It’s simply too spread out to cover on foot, and by car you usually can’t get close enough to the best spots.
The team at Revolution Cycle offers various tours along the River Valley that you can book here.
Elk Island National Park
Just a little over half an hour’s drive to the east, you’ll find Elk Island National Park — a worthwhile day trip from Edmonton.
Elk Island National Park is best known for its bison herds, which can be spotted in many areas of the park. With a bit of luck, you might also see elk, though unfortunately we didn’t.
West Edmonton Mall
The West Edmonton Mall simply has to be on any list of Edmonton attractions. With more than 800 stores, it’s the largest mall in North America and the sixth largest in the world.
In addition to the shops, the mall is home to all kinds of record-breakers:
- the world’s largest indoor amusement park
- the world’s largest triple-loop indoor roller coaster
- the largest indoor river
- the world’s largest indoor bungee jumping tower
- the world’s largest indoor wave pool
- the largest parking lot in the world.
Pretty impressive, right? Shopping malls aren’t really our thing, so we didn’t go. Still, it’s definitely one of Edmonton’s standout highlights, and we didn’t want to leave it out.
Our Restaurant Tips for Edmonton
A real find for us was ‘Ono Poke Co. on 104th Street in Downtown. Poke is a kind of salad and the national dish of Hawaii. There are several varieties, all of them delicious. The base is often raw salmon or tuna — which also makes it a little reminiscent of Japanese cuisine.
We discovered a great Korean restaurant in Old Strathcona. NongBu Eatery is located on 104th Street, one block off Whyte Avenue.
The fish and chips at The Common on 109 St NW at the corner of 99 Ave were also excellent.
For great coffee, head to District Cafe and Bakery on 109th Street at the corner of 100th Avenue. Make sure to try the marshmallow cake while you’re there.
Speaking of trying things: a kind of local specialty in Edmonton is the green onion cake. We naturally had to give it a go. It’s a type of flaky, slightly greasy pastry filled with green onions.
Green onion cake actually comes from Chinese cuisine and was popularized in the city by Chinese immigrants. It didn’t exactly blow us away, though.
Getting Around Edmonton & Onward Travel
Edmonton is an absolute car city. Public transportation exists only in a very rudimentary form, so your best bet is to explore the city with a rental car. Traffic is relatively manageable for a large city, which is probably due to the wide streets. We never got stuck in a traffic jam.
Your best move is to rent a car right at Edmonton Airport when you arrive. From the airport to the city center takes about 20 to 30 minutes.
Our tip: We usually book online through Discovercars, where you can compare rental car deals from all the major providers.
For most visitors, Edmonton is just one stop on a road trip through Alberta or western Canada. Heading south, you can reach Calgary in just over three hours. Heading west, it’s about four hours by car to Jasper National Park.
Our Verdict on Edmonton
Edmonton didn’t exactly knock our socks off. We love cities where you can stroll through the streets and discover something new around every corner. Unfortunately, Edmonton doesn’t deliver that.
As a pedestrian, you always feel a little lost among the wide streets, and without a car you won’t have much fun here.
As a one-day stopover on a road trip, though, the city is still a decent base. There are a few things to do in Edmonton that make it worth a stop.
Our verdict in a nutshell: Edmonton is fine to visit, but it’s not a must-see.
Your trust matters to us: We were supported on our trip to Canada by Travel Alberta. Travel Alberta covered our flights, some of our hotels, and our rental car — and best of all: we got to watch the Edmonton Oilers game from the Edmonton Tourism lounge. Our opinions, of course, remain entirely our own.
