Photo: Scott Ballem
There?s only one road into Tofino, which forces you to slow down. And I mean that in every sense. Trading our home on a busy downtown street for a cabin on the beach, it felt like someone hit the slow-mo button on life. I?m not even going to try to sidestep all the West Coast clichés: During our five days in this sweet seaside town, my husband, Scott, and I remembered what it felt like to really relax; our seven-year-old, Beatrice, became obsessed with the mystic properties of crystals and four-year-old Orson transferred his adoration for construction workers to surfers.
Not to sound like a beanie-headed hippie, but our time in Tofino changed us. It was waking up to mountains that seemed to rise out of the sea, watching the kids run to the beach in their PJs before breakfast, and the sand dollars they treated like ancient dinosaur fossils. It was falling asleep to the sound of waves and the peace that wrapped around us like the dense Tofino fog. We were in awe the whole time. Fuzzy feelings aside, we had a phenomenal time. Here are the details.
Layover

It?s a journey?especially if you?re coming from the east coast?which includes a ferry to Nanaimo and then a three-hour drive to Tofino. To break it up, we eased into West Coast life with two nights at Vancouver?s Times Square Suites. Our cozy one-bedroom-plus-den had a kitchen (we grabbed eggs, yogurt and cereal from the store a block away), a pullout couch for the kids (which thrilled them) and in-suit...