British Columbia

myredracer wrote:

Paoli wrote:

One thing to keep in mind about the weather in BC is that by the end of Aug. or early Sept., the eastern and northern part of the province is starting to get cold and places are starting to shut down for the winter.

You are not very well informed about eastern and northern BC.
Campsites are still open at the end of august AND early september.

I wished people would check before they start posting rumours.

When we were camping in that area of BC 20 - 30 years ago, that was what we found because of the low temps. I said they are "starting" to close, not they are closed.

One thing to keep in mind about the weather in BC is that by the end of Aug. or early Sept., the eastern and northern part of the province is starting to get cold and places are starting to shut down for the winter.

You are not very well informed about eastern and northern BC.
Campsites are still open at the end of august AND early september.

I wished people would check before they start posting rumours.

"Barkerville near Williams Lake is interesting. It's an old mining town."

Barkerville is a great place to visit, but is near Quesnel.

Further to the above:

One thing to keep in mind about the weather in BC is that by the end of Aug. or early Sept., the eastern and northern part of the province is starting to get cold and places are starting to shut down for the winter. Might be better to time a trip so that you end up in the south coast area in later August. We typically get decent weather into late Oct.

Another thing to consider is that gas prices have shot up lately to about $6 per gallon. If you happen to be near the US border, you can get gas at around 1/3 less.

On things to visit, you might find the Sunshine Coast nice. It's a short ferry ride from just north of Vancouver. If you travel north up the Sunshine Coast and get to Powell River, you can take a ferry over to Comox on Vancouver Island. From there, you can drive down to Victoria. Victoria is lovely and they say it is more British than the British. Be aware that ferry fares on BC Ferries is expensive. One way to the Island for our 50' truck and trailer is about $400. They have had discount fares or 1/3 off on Tuesdays and Thursdays lately. I recommend getting reservations ahead of time as the ferries are quite busy in the summer. BC Ferries

The west coast of the Island, Tofino and Ucluelet is interesting and is where world famous Long Beach is. You'd also drive through Cathedral Grove, part way between Port Alberni and Parksville, on the way to Tofino. Cathedral Grove is a protected old growth forest in a provincial park. Port Alberni has an annual salmon festival Aug. 30 - Sept. 2.

If you have the time, you could take a ferry from Victoria to Port Angeles on the Olympic Peninsula in the US. From there, you could take a ferry from Port Townsend to Anacortes, just south of the Canada/Us border. Personally, I would highly recommend this.

Another suggestion would be heading north out of Vancouver and driving up the sea-to-sky highway to Whistler. From there, you can drive north and then down to Lytton and the Frae Canyon or you can head over to Kamloops. Kamloops has the only genuine desert terrain in Canada.

Barkerville near Williams Lake is interesting. It's an old mining town. Nelson is also interesting and is a historic town with numerous old buildings. Harrison Mills in the Fraser Valley is another interesting place.

If horses interest you, there are tons of places around the interior of the province where you can find horse rides. There are also dude and guest ranches around the province and you could possibly park your RV for a day or two and stay at one. We went on a horse ride at a guest ranch near 108 Mile House a few years back and it was fantastic.

Unless you really must, I would avoid going into Vancouver and adjacent areas (Richmond, Surrey, etc.) because it's so congested and slow to get around. If you do want to go into Vancouver though, consider a visit to Stanley Park which is allegedly the largest urban park in North America.

You bet! Great place, 17 kms from Lyton. Friendly town, people, a bit of sightseeing in town. Wonderful place to spend a few days and relax. Good fishing too. Watch out for bears.



We enjoyed BC. Of course, we are enjoying Ontario now; Simcoe, Perth, Toronto today for three days.

Thanks sue.t. We have a list of what is allowed over the border – but I know it changes and will print off a new one as we leave home.

Thanks for more ideas – casinos sound good – might make a dollar or two to pay for the next campground:)

qtla9111 I have added Lake Banotie to my list of places to go – I assume this was a place to go and not one to avoid:h

Couldn't resist. Lake Banotie in Lytton, BC. BC Forest Service site no fees. Only three sites, pit toilet and a shelter stocked with wood and woodstove.

Yep, I left off casinos. We stayed at one in Langley. I sent an email ahead of time to their "customer care" department. They answered back and said "yes". They also sent me the name of the head of security who met us at the front desk and showed us where to park. Very nice, they even had electric in the perimeter for gardening. They offered, we didn't ask. There are many and also a website casinocamper.com and casinocampgrounds.com.

I noticed on the Free Campsites Website that a "Flying J" was shown near Kamloops on the Trans-Canada highway. We have often stayed at truck stops, including Flying J, Pilot, Petro-Canada, Love's, and others. Some of these large truck stops have special RV parking spaces so that you are not parked among the semi-trailer trucks, some have sanidumps, potable water, and propane, and all have gasoline, diesel, restaurants, a few groceries, and showers. Overnight parking is free, meals are generally inexpensive, and fuel less expensive than other brand-name gas stations, but showers may be relatively expensive.

Generally you will not be able to put out a slide or awning due to the narrow width of the spaces and we don't put down our steps either. But, if all you need is a place to sleep and you have gotten a good pair of earplugs at a Walmart or Canadian Superstore, you should have no problems spending a cheap night along the way.

Boondocks

Above from Wikipedia.

On the BC Coast is can also refer to Booming Grounds where logs are dumped into water (ocean, river or lake) and tied into log booms to be towed to a saw mill.

Many small towns in BC and AB have municipal campgrounds that may or may not have hook-ups but are generally quite nice and reasonably priced.