Day trip date ideas

A 120-year-old garden in an old limestone quarry, where Jennie Butchart invented romance out of an industrial problem.

A genuine 1908 castle with free Italian, Japanese and rose gardens, peacocks, and a film resume that includes Professor X's mansion.

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.

Tasting flights of award-winning organic cider on a ten-acre Saanich Peninsula orchard above the water, reservations required on weekends.

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.

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

Greater Victoria's only aquarium packs 3,500 local sea creatures and a touch pool into one low-key Sidney afternoon, closed Wednesdays and Thursdays.

A First Nation-owned outfit with two decades on the water, launching into the calm island maze where orca actually live.

The rugged coastal scramble locals call the West Coast Trail you can do in a day, with ancient petroglyphs and the Pacific doing its best.

On the Sidney waterfront, the makers of colour-shifting Empress 1908 Gin hand you bitters and garnishes and let you play bartender.

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

A flat, mile-long breakwater into Sooke Harbour, where the eagles and seals show up and the Olympic Mountains do the rest.

A string of cedar-ringed emerald pools drilled into solid rock by the Sooke River, and yes, you can swim in them.

Earned by 2 km of dripping rainforest trail: a wild cove with a cliff waterfall, sea cave and rope swing.

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 lesser-known flat rail trail where you can talk the whole way, ending at Sidney's bookshops and waterfront patios as your reward.