Surf & Turf With Campgrounds

Twenty-three nights in a motorhome round western Canada with every campground booked ahead, which in July and August is worth a great deal more than it costs.

The itinerary pairs two quite different halves. The Rockies and the Okanagan supply the mountains and the wine, and then Vancouver Island supplies the Pacific, which is a genuinely different climate and landscape rather than more of the same.

Cathedral Grove is the first island stop, where Douglas fir and western red cedar around eight hundred years old stand close enough to the road to walk among in ten minutes. Ucluelet follows on the exposed Pacific coast, with the long shoreline walk at Long Beach and an optional whale-watching trip.

The route then crosses back over the island to Victoria by way of Coombs, where the market has goats grazing on its grass roof, which is exactly as odd as it sounds and has been going since the 1970s. Victoria itself has the Parliament building on the harbour, seafood at Fisherman’s Wharf, and whale watching for the resident orca population, which numbers under a hundred animals and is closely studied. The ferry from Swartz Bay threads through the Gulf Islands to Tsawwassen, and the SkyTrain runs into Vancouver for the last day. Canadian Affair include the flights, the motorhome, the pre-booked campgrounds and the ferries, with fuel, insurance and meals separate. The price is per person. Twenty-three nights is the longest motorhome holiday they sell, and the reason it works is the contrast: by the time the mountains start to feel familiar the route has moved to the coast, and the island is a different holiday in all but name.