Victoria Travel Guide (Victoria, Southern British Columbia)

BC Ferries operates four routes to the island across the Georgia Strait from mainland British Columbia (tel 1-888/223-3779 from anywhere in BC; otherwise tel 604/444-2890 or tel 250/386-3431 in Vancouver, Victoria or outside BC, www.bcferries.com ). Reservations on all routes are essential in summer if you want to avoid long waits, and can be made up to 90 minutes prior to sailing. The most direct and heavily used by Victoria-Vancouver passengers is the Tsawwassen-Swartz Bay connection, the route used by Pacific Coach Lines' buses. Tsawwassen is about a forty-minute drive south of downtown Vancouver; Swartz Bay is the same distance north of Victoria. Ferries ply the route almost continuously from 7am to 10pm (sixteen sailings daily in summer, minimum of eight daily in winter). Car tickets cost $32 at weekends (noon Fri to last sailing on Sun) and $30 on weekdays in high season ($28.75/$27 in shoulder season, $24.25/$22.75 in low. A bike costs $2.50 year-round. The Mid-Island Express from Tsawwassen to Nanaimo, (Duke Point terminal) midway up the island, has eight or so departures daily on the two-hour crossing. More boats cover the Horseshoe Bay-Nanaimo (Departure Bay terminal) route, a 95-minute journey from a terminal about fifteen-minutes' drive from West Vancouver. Note that a new ferry terminal, Discovery Point, has been opened at Nanaimo for the first of these crossings. Fares for both these routes are the same as for Tsawwassen to Swartz Bay. The fourth route is Powell River-Comox, Powell River being some 160km northwest of Vancouver on the Sunshine Coast.