My husband and I will be spending two days in Tofino in July. We'll have a car and have already booked a place to stay, but I'm not sure yet how we'll spend our short time there. We definitely will go to Meare's Island, but I'm thinking we might skip the whale watching tours and hot springs because we don't want to commit that much time to a single activity. Can anyone suggest areas that we should explore by car/hike? Thanks in advance. PS. We're on a budget.

Pacific Rim National Park is just south of the town of Tofino, and has some wonderful (huge and sandy)beaches that you can explore.

Here's a website for you to check out:
http://www.pc.gc.ca/pn-np/bc/pacificrim/index_e.asp

An inexpensive but incredibly good breakfast or lunch is the Common Loaf. The Tofino Bars are yummy.

If you have time to drive into Ucluelet, the Wild West Coast Trail is fun. It's a fairly easy walk along the rocky coast - waves crashing onto the rocks below you, little coves and beaches dotted here and there.

I never did the hot spring tour, but I did a bear-whatching tour with a Zodiac-boat. The inlet is very intresting (you can see areas, with no road access) and would like to motivate you to do such a boat trip. It takes only 2 hours and their are several operators for such a tour. I recommend not to do an advance booking. You can choose from different local tours in Tofino acc. to your budget (bear whatching tour will cost 65 CAD + tax).

Also the whale-whatching tours do not consume so much time (between 2 and 2 1/2 hours).

You can also drive to radar hill, you can reach a nice overlooking viewpoint by making a short hike.

I enthusiastically support tom22's suggestion about Radar Hill. (It's such a natural thing to do during a visit to Tofino that I didn't even think to mention it.)

Spectacular views over the ocean and along the coast, especially at sunset - but a definite must no matter what the time of day. It's easily accessible (I believe it's even wheelchair accessible.)

A tip on Pacific Rim Park (lots of great trails) the fee is $10 per day - but day is defined as a 24 hour period. This was great for us, as we stopped late one day and didn't need to pay again the next. We also enjoyed the Wild Coast Trail in Ucluelet, where there was no fee for admittance/parking.