topeater

My husband and I will be in BC in September. We are flying in and out of Seattle as the tickets were over 50% cheaper! We arrive in Seattle around 2pm and have booked the 6:50pm train to Vancouver the same day. We are planning on spending 4-5 days in Vancouver and then renting a car and spending a couple of days in Tofino. I would like to drive from there to Victoria for a night or 2 before returning to Seattle for the flight home. Planning on taking the ferry back to Seattle.

Any suggestions of car rental agencies to use? Also, any idea of the cost of renting in 1 city and dropping off at another? It's expensive to do this in the states, but not in our travels in Europe. Hoping Canada is more like Europe in this regard!

Thanks for any suggestions or info.

Sam_Salmon

Canada is nothing like Europe and the dropoff charges will be breathtaking.

It might be cheaper to rent in Nanaimo and drop off in Victoria but not cheap

elberko

When we did a similar trip, we rented and returned the car in Seattle. Worked fine.

topeater

Thanks for the info even thought it wasn't what I wanted to hear! I really wanted to avoid crossing the border in a car, so the train seems much easier.

topeater

This is for anyone else that might be searching for the same answer. Since our time is limited, we looked at flying from Vancouver to Victoria and renting a car there vs renting a car in Vancouver and dropping it off in Victoria after visiting Tofino.

I checked with harbor Air Seaplanes and they have flights that leave about every 30-40 minutes and the flight takes about 30 minutes. Cost for 2 was $410 Canadian. Then, I checked with Avis about car rental, renting in Vancouver and dropping off in Victoria. Cost was $445 Canadian. Not much difference and you don't have to back track.

Of course, it would be much cheaper to take the ferry from Vancouver to Victoria and rent and return the car there, but as I understand it, it takes about 30 minutes to get to the ferry terminal in Vancouver, the trip takes 4 hours and then another 30 minutes to get to the car rental. So, it all depends on how much time you have. If we had more, that's what I would do.