Western Canada is a treasure of North America. Pastel turquoise lakes surrounded by the towering peaks of the Canadian Rocky Mountains – there's nowhere else like it. Here are the 15 most beautiful places you can visit in this breathtaking landscape.

Postcard-perfect mountains, turquoise lakes, and bluish glaciers opened up before us as we arrived on the Kenai Peninsula — the part of Alaska we all know from those famous, almost kitsch photographs. Before officially entering the peninsula, we stopped at the quirky port town of Whittier on Prince William Sound.

"You know we just smuggled across the border everything we confirmed we didn't have? A weapon (bear spray is considered a weapon), alcohol, fruit, and commercial products." Crossing from Canada's Yukon into Alaska turned out to be surprisingly smooth — and that was just the beginning of our wild Alaskan road trip.

We spent two weeks camping on the Hawaiian island of Maui. Sleeping in beachside campsites and inside the Haleakala crater was an exotic experience we'd never had before — here's what camping in Hawaii is really like and how much it costs.

After our article about the dark side of working in Canada, many of you asked why we were there and why we kept coming back. So here's our honest story about moving to Canada — and everything we learned along the way.

Upon arriving at the place from which we'd been posting breathtaking mountain photos, I had a mental breakdown in our 2×2 metre room with a shared kitchen for 40 people and one mouse. "I want to go home. What was I thinking!" I screamed during our first hours in the staff accommodation in the forest above Banff, where we were supposed to spend 2.5 months.