Downtown Victoria edges the active Inner Harbor, which sees traffic from oceangoing ships, float planes, fishing boats and ferries. Set against a backdrop of the Olympic Mountains across the straits in Washington and the Sooke Mountains, Victoria’s setting is breathtaking. Victoria, surprisingly, is home to North America’s second-highest number of restaurants per capita (San Francisco is first). Although very, very British in character, the city’s population of 325,000 in the greater Victoria area includes Hungarians, Romanians, Lebanese, Ethiopians, Turks, Italians, Philippinos, East Indians and Greeks, supporting an vibrant intercultural scene.

Offering 40,000 sq. ft. of indoor space, the largest meeting facility in the city is the Victoria Conference Centre (victoriaconference.com). There’s an additional 8,000 sq. ft. of usable space in the outdoor courtyard, which can be protected by a clear-span, glass-panel-wall temporary structure, which encloses the conference center’s courtyard, with its flower planters and signature fountain. The facility is attached to The Fairmont Empress, the largest hotel in Victoria.

There is also meeting space with golf at the new Westin Bear Mountain Golf Resort & Spa (bearmountain.ca), about 20-minutes’ drive “up-island,” as they say, from the city. Along with a total of 156 guest rooms, the resort offers Vancouver Island’s only Jack and Steve Nicklaus co-designed, 18-hole golf course. There’s a 6,000-square-foot conference facility within its new 160,000-square-foot clubhouse. Tee times should multiply with a second course by the Nicklaus duo set to open alongside, next year.

The Royal BC Museum (royalbcmuseum.bc.ca), which houses 7 million artifacts, is one of Victoria’s top venues. It’s very experiential; on three floors you visit 15 lifelike galleries depicting the human and natural history of British Columbia, literally walking through a historic hotel and a 19th-century kitchen, complete with scents and sounds.

Other venues are Hatley Castle (hatleycastle.com) part of a 565-acre Edwardian estate and Buchart Gardens (buchartgardens.com). Now a National Historic Site, world-renowned Buchart Gardens has several rooms for events in the original home of the Bucharts. The gardens offer entertainment in July and August, including music, nighttime illuminations and fireworks.

Culinary tours have become a huge draw to the area and they don’t just include wineries, but also incorporate farms, sampling some of the local cheeses, mushroom foraging and visiting the wineries along the way. Travel with Taste (travelwithtaste.com) in Victoria, as well as Fairburn Farm (fairburnfarm.bc.ca) and Chalet Estate Vineyard (chaletestatevineyard.ca) in Sidney, located near the airport, are sources.

Getting There

Vancouver International Airport  has nonstop service to most major U.S. cities and is served by nearly all principal U.S. airlines. The airport is located 20 minutes’ drive north of the downtown. Until completion in late 2009 of the Canada Line link, the transfer options are taxi and public bus system.

What's New?

Victoria’s No Longer a Secret | United Airlines has begun new direct daily service between San Francisco International Airport an...