Whiffin Spit Sunset Walk

A 35-minute ferry to Salt Spring's 140-vendor Saturday market, lavender fields, cheese farms, and a fireplace waiting at the end.

Tofino in winter: 20-foot swells and a fireplace. In summer: surf lessons. Ucluelet is the quieter locals' version of both.

Two islands stitched by a wooden bridge, an Airstream in the woods, and a hot tub pointed at the stars.

Twenty-five oceanfront cabins one hour west of Victoria, each with a private hot tub and the Olympic Mountains across the water.

BC's warmest wine country doubles as a float-home cheese crawl and tubing river, all under an hour from Victoria.

A 25-minute summer ferry to a national-park sandbar where the crowds simply do not come.

A flat, shaded rail trail that ends at a peaceful cove and a beloved local swimming hole near Sooke.

The gnarliest tree in Canada and a tide-pool beach crawling with purple sea stars, two hours from Victoria.

Canada's only Booktown, where the plan is to pick a book for each other and compare notes over a cinnamon bun.

Victoria's Parliament Buildings flip on 3,000-plus light bulbs at dusk, and you get to just stand there with ice cream.

A 360-degree summit view ranked among Canada's most beautiful, and the whole trick is you drove here.

Victoria's most over-delivering sunset walk, from driftwood logs on the bluff to Clover Point's kite-filled sky.

The sunset Victorians quietly beg you not to put on a list, from a 1914 observatory perch only locals know.

Two completely different waterscapes on one thin strip of sand, swans on one side, Olympics on the other, and it's free.