"I can't believe I'm doing this."

My husband is grimacing as he tries to empty the sewage, known in recreational vehicle terminology as "black water", into a dumping station at an RV camp.

I'm marvelling at the fact that he has hardly complained, even after driving our rented RV for hours along Alberta's highways, a process he likens to pushing a bathtub uphill.

The RV is our proposed solution to the recession: a relatively cheap way to take a family of six out west to experience the Canadian Badlands, home to the greatest number of dinosaur fossils on Earth.

Our goal is to encourage the children's interest in dinosaurs with an educational holiday and, on an economic level, try a more luxurious version of camping without breaking the budget.

But try squeezing six people into a space not much larger than an average bathroom and you're bound to feel claustrophobic. Add bad directions that accumulate unwanted hours on a long journey and a torrential downpour when you reach your destination and what you get easily approaches the definition of a holiday gone wrong.

Still, how you look at a situation defines your interpretation and this is what I was mulling over early one evening in the Dinosaur Provincial Park in eastern Alberta.

We had arrived with frayed nerves after a seemingly never-ending drive, just in time for a quick dinner of grilled cheese at the park concession, the only eatery around for some distance.

A two-hour bus tour of the park had ended just as the rain drenched this dusty land. And between the downpour and the rolling peals of thunder, we were confined to the trusty RV for hours.

Yet we were in a special spot, camping in a park that protects the remains of 75 million-year-old dinosaur bones and boasts 38 different species. That makes it one of the largest collections of fossilised dinosaur remains in the world.

Out on tour with park rangers, it was clear that with every step we were treading on history, an ancient world carved into the majestic Badlands.

Despite the unfortunate name, those Badlands are magnificent. Etched with the colours of time, stratified mountains descend to the ground with cracked, dry thighs, embracing each other like a community of tightly knit giants.

Time and wind have given many of the peaks the appearance of faces and, in the dusky grey of a summer thunderstorm, it is easy to see the silhouettes of prehistoric creatures staring straight at you.

Add the rumbling thunder and you almost expect to see a dinosaur around the corner.

Today it's a semi-arid desert. In the dinosaur heyday, the land was a beach on the cusp of the Bearpaw Sea, a lush landscape that was a clear favourite for Hadrosaurids - duck-billed dinosaurs - whose fossils are now found here in abundance.

"This one was the size of our bus," our guide says as she points to the virtually intact fossil of one.

Excavated in the late 1960s, this Hadrosaurid is curled up in an embryonic pose, leading scientists to hypothesise that it drowned by falling in a river, its remains quickly protected by the layers of sandstone and mudstone that accumulated on top of it.

My children are in awe. Like most their age, they are fascinated by dinosaurs and this is as close as they can get to seeing them in the flesh - or bone, as it were.

Dinosaur Provincial Park is a veritable bone-bed, an 80km2 stretch of remote Albertan soil that is richer in dino bone than anywhere else in the world.

To truly understand its significance, we drive 90 minutes north-west to Drumheller, the home of the Royal Tyrrell Museum.

The crown jewel of this town of 10 000, the Royal Tyrrell is the only Canadian museum devoted exclusively to palaeontology.

Its exhibits are riveting. Recreated figures of the dinosaurs testify to their immensity, and there is an opportunity to peek into the laboratories of technicians patiently chipping away at rock surrounding newly found fossils.

Hands-on displays help children understand concepts such as continental drift and how fossils form. And a film introduces visitors to the museum's scientists, who describe their passion for the work and its relevance today.

Later the children learn to make a fossil cast in a hands-on workshop. Then we're off to Fossil World, a new facility where they try rock climbing, dig in a sandpit for dinosaur fossils and collect minerals.

Overlooking their activities is a massive Tyrannosaurus Rex with animatronics that roars at the crowd and has a menacing glint in his all-too-real looking eyes.

Downtown Drumheller is a nondescript couple of blocks where the dinosuar theme is the only point of interest. We had a megasaurus pizza at Bernie & The Boys Bistro and checked out the world's largest dinosaur at the visitors' centre, climbing the 25 metres from tail to mouth to get a bird's-eye view of the town.

In an RV park a few minutes from town, we sat around a camp fire roasting marshmallows while the children found instant playmates in the community. It's one of those rare moments of family beauty when the whining has stopped and everyone is happily engaged.

It is a far cry from a luxury cruise. But sometimes the road less travelled yields unexpected adventure. This RV road trip was one of those times.