The 5 Best Day Trips From Vancouver, Canada

A thrillseeker’s playground, Whistler thrives throughout the seasons. As it’s known for its sprawling ski resort, winter months come alive with skiers and snowboarders carving tracks into fresh snow. Summer, meanwhile, sees mountain bikers and hikers swallowed up by dense forests. Its charming village sits at the base of the mountain, kept cozy by flickering fires in rustic cabins and the atomic-orange glow of heat lamps that you can huddle under outside après-ski bars.

Pocketed away in a secluded inlet on the eastern coast of Vancouver Island, Telegraph Cove is a storybook gateway into the great outdoors. The former fishing village has carved out its place on the map as a seasonal resort, providing escapism with its forest campground and waterfront restaurants. In the summer months, the bay is frequented by whale watchers, hikers and fishers looking to get their fix of the surrounding nature before crashing in one of the area’s rust-red lodges.

Though it may sound like a fictional location in a Mario Kart game, the Sunshine Coast is a spectacular collection of looming mountains, art galleries and rugged hiking trails. Stretching along the southern mainland coast, the region’s diverse landscape is a hub of outdoor activities, such as scuba diving, kayaking, rock climbing and mountain biking. The creative world has also set up shop along its length, dotting the area with open-to-public artist studios and throwing annual arts festivals.

Vancouver Island lies just off the coast of the mainland, the wild sister of the cosmopolitan city. Bookended by the psychedelic flora of British Columbia’s capital city, Victoria, in the south and the wind-lashed tip of Cape Scott in the north, nature dominates – a chunky mosaic of glaciers, mountain ranges and cloud-canopied valleys cut with creeping rivers and deep lakes. While it’s tempting to get lost in the enticing outdoors, it’s also hard to resist the live music and cocktail bars of the capital.

Sitting just north of Victoria, Brentwood Bay’s world-famous Butchart Gardens has put the small village on nomads’ radars. Depending on the season, this otherworldly Eden blooms with wintery lavenders, fiery autumnal shades and kaleidoscopic summer flowers. If the manicured gardens aren’t reason enough to visit, there is a network of hiking trails winding through untouched forest or a variety of pristine golf courses to enjoy.