215 Best Sights in British Columbia, Canada

This sandy beach, with its calm waters, playground, and shady picnic spots, is a summertime favorite among Victorian families. It’s just a few miles from Downtown in the very British Oak Bay neighborhood. Amenities: food and drink (summer kiosk); parking; toilets. Best for: swimming.

About 30 minutes west of Downtown Victoria, this park has a sandy beach, forest trails, marshlands, and a large lagoon—and it's home to 160 species of birds. There's also a nature house that presents interpretive programs. Amenities: parking; toilets. Best for: solitude; walking.

Clothing-optional Wreck Beach is in Pacific Spirit Regional Park, accessible via Trail 6—a winding staircase of 483 steps that's near the University of British Columbia campus. On sunny days, the beach is busy with locals and visitors, most of whom strip down to their birthday suits and enjoy the clean swimming waters. The welcoming sands also stretch around Point Grey to the north, where beach logs, wildlife, and WWII searchlight towers are some of the many reasons to explore further. Amenities: parking (for a fee) and toilets. Best for: its atmosphere, nudists, sunsets, and swimming.

The park's only visitor center is located in Field and is only available seasonally (May until mid-October). At the center, you can obtain information brochures, permits, backcountry reservations, and get updates on weather, trail, and road conditions. The visitor center shares a building with the Friends of Yoho (an organization that promotes appreciation, understanding, and stewardship of the ecology and culture of Yoho National Park) and there is also a small-scale exhibit of a train passing through the Spiral Tunnels and Burgess Shale fossil interpretive panels.

Hands down, this is the most scenic route in the whole park. After initially passing the Monarch and Kicking Horse campgrounds and the Meeting of the Waters viewpoint (where the Kicking Horse and Yoho Rivers meet), the 13.7-km (8.5-mile) road climbs up through a deep valley with impressive views of snow-covered mountain peaks, glaciers, waterfalls, and rivers. The road ends at the parking lot of the spectacular Takakkaw Falls, the second-highest waterfall in Canada. Note that the winding road has a couple of sharp, hairpin switchbacks that can be very difficult for larger RVs to navigate, and the road is open seasonally from late June to mid-October, weather permitting.