Need Help w/ Motorcycle Trip Victoria
 

Oh, do I need help! Our motorcycling group (4 couples plus 4 single guys) wants to take a 3 night trip to Vancouver Island. Somehow I got put in charge of finding lodging and things to do. Here's what I know so far:

Depart Portland Friday July 30. Take ferry out of Port Angeles into Victoria. Need lodging Friday night in or near Victoria. Saturday night could be in Victoria too, or maybe Nanaimo area. Sunday lodging, up for grabs, would consider going over to Vancouver or back to Victoria or ?? Drive back to Portand on Monday.

We don't mind putting on a lot of miles on Friday and Monday (400+ miles is okay). We like to take scenic routes, avoid big-city traffic. Once we arrive at a destination, we like to park the bikes for the night and be on foot for all our carousing and such.

Lodging.. well, what can I say? (We're a bunch of bikers, but we clean up well and you meet the nicest people on a Honda! OK, there's a few Harley's too.) I have a preference for non-chain places with some history or character. Motor Inn's are probably preferable to highrise hotels (valet parking never knows what to do with our bikes). Would be great to find rooms with some character under $100 US. We'll need probably 6 rooms each night. I know reservations are important in the summer, so Please, whatever suggestions you've got are very welcome!

While I'm at it, how about nightlife in Victoria? Fun bars, good food, maybe some rock or blues music? Also... these guys are big on breakfast, preferring the ma and pa places over Denny's. Suggestions?

Ok, that's it for now. I've been using Sunset Magazine's online archives for some ideas, but I know the real experts are found on Fodors...! Thanks to all in advance!

Carla

I wish I could help you more, Carla but I cannot really remember what we did when we did the island on our bikes.

But....here is what I do remember.

On night one on the island, we stayed in Sidney, outside of Victoria. It is a nice, small town, the hotels are friendly and clean and far cheaper than in Victoria and you don't have to travel the city when you are tired.
We were tired because we had travelled a good long day and were glad that we found accomodation in Sidney. I would recommend that you look up Sidney hotels and book, the island doesn't have a whole lot of vacancies, normally, for drive up travellers.

You might want to travel to Duncan on day one but that could make for a really long day. Duncan is about 1 1/2 hours away from Victoria proper, meaning don't include your travel through the city.

I would skip Vancouver for this short trip and stay on the island, if you make it to Duncan on night one, you could spend night 2 in Tofino or Ucluelet. And that would be a lovely drive on your bikes. Be sure to book someplace to stay in advance.

We were lucky enough to have a home to stay at in Duncan on Maple Bay as my b-i-l lived there at the time.

But we have travelled the island on our bikes a few times and lots of bikers travel there and are welcome. You don't need to worry about being turned away, I am sure.

I like the area of Sooke over Vic for biking, there is the 3 mile pub, the 7 mile pub (I think, again, I cannot remember all of the names) but Sooke is great. Perhaps instead of staying in Sidney, you might want to head on to Sooke. On our last trip, we were heading from Vic, through Sooke and on up to Port Hardy, what a beautiful drive, but I fear you do not have enough time to do that trip. Plan to do it sometime though.

Our son was finishing his degree in Victoria and was working the summer at the "fairy" campground outside of Port Hardy. Ranger Steve has never lived that down. HeHe

I think that if you have the names of a few towns, Tofino, Duncan, Sidney, Ucluelet and do a look up on the internet, you can find all kinds of information on accomodation.

Good luck and have a wonderful trip.

Thanks so much for the info, 2jacks. What we've decided is to stay the first night in Port Angeles, so that we can catch the early ferry over to Victoria.

Then we'll stay two nights in Victoria, using it as a base of operation to explore the island on the weekend. We ended up with Paul's Motor Inn, www.paulsmotorinn dot com. Looks very kitschy, and has an all-night diner. Should suit most of the group just fine!

Staying right in Victoria also allows us to get an early place in line for the ferry back to Port Angeles.

Tofino looks awesome, but I think this trip we will stay on the east side of the island, going up to Nanaimo and Campbell River. Sooke looks great too.

thanks again!

There is also a Whitespot restaurant across the street from Paul's, and Chinatown isn't far away. I wouldn't know a fun bar from an 'unfun' one but I would think that the pub at Swan's Hotel, a street over from Chinatown, would be nicer than, say, the Douglas Hotel. Spinnakers is popular but you'd probably want to drive to it.
http://www.whitespot.com/site_directory.htm
http://www.swanshotel.com/pub.html
http://www.spinnakers.com/index01.htm

Sam's Deli near Victoria's inner harbour is a place where you can get huge sandwiches. For supper you could try Il Terrazzo (maybe expensive and loud) across from Market Square, Pagliacci's (crowded, cramped and loud) further into town on Broad St., or Milestones at the inner harbour by the tourist centre.
http://emenus.ca/Pagliaccis/
http://www.milestonesrestaurants.com/victoria.html

On your drive up island, you could stop in at Tim Hortons, a Canadian tradition, just on the far side of Duncan for donuts, coffee and inexpensive soup/sandwich lunches. The Country Cupboard Cafe out past Sooke village had good desserts last time I was there.

April, thanks for the links to the food places in Victoria and elsewhere on the Island. Whitespot, Milestones and Tim Horton's (any excuse to have a donut!) sound great.

I'm making note of all the names and locations for the trip, which is next weekend. Looks like perfect weather for biking.
Carla

We had a great trip and I want to thank those who responded. We ended up staying at Port Angeles Inn (in Port Angeles) for one night. We arrived around 9:00pm and had dinner at an Indian Restaurant on Lincoln Street - very good. The next day we rode into Olympic National Forest and saw some beautiful scenery.

We made the 5:15 ferry and were into Victoria by 7:00pm. Big Surprise - there was an enormous festival going on there - something called Symphony Splash. Zillions of people, traffic crawled! We stayed at Paul's Motor Inn, which was a mixed bag. Our room was wonderful, in an area called "the courtyard". Latecomers got rooms not so great, all that was left was smoking rooms in the main part of the building. But the price ($55/nite USD) was unbeatable, the place has good parking and is an easy walk to Chinatown (where we had dinner) and it's maybe a 10 minute walk to the Parliament Building. Whitespot is fine for breakfast. We did a late night thing at Sopranos, which is a karaoke bar about a block from Paul's Motor Inn (we felt pretty old, since when do you karaoke to Pearl Jam songs??)

We did drive up a little of the inside coast line, but decided to return to Victoria pretty early in the day. I'd love to go back for another 2-3 days and stay in Victoria the entire time. It's true what they say - you don't need a car in Victoria.

Enjoy!