Highway 1: Victoria to Nanaimo Travel Guide

If you leave Victoria with high hopes of Vancouver Island's lauded scenery, Hwy 1 - the final western leg of the Trans-Canada - will come as a disappointing introduction to what you can expect along most of the island's southeast coast. After a lengthy sprawl of suburbs, blighted by more billboards than you'd see in supposedly less scenic cities, the landscape becomes suddenly wooded and immensely lush; unfortunately the beauty is constantly interrupted by bursts of dismal motels and other highway junk. Buses operated by Laidlaw make the trip between Victoria and Nanaimo (6 daily). One train a day also covers this route, and beyond to Courtenay, but it's a single-carriage job and gets booked solid in summer; it stops at every stump.