British Columbia Travel Guide

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Canada's most westerly province, British Columbia is huge and diverse. If you love the great outdoors, you'll never be bored in a province that is so beautiful, with such variation, and with so many opportunities for hiking, rafting, sailing and skiing, to name just a few.

Diverse landscapes
British Columbia is studded with breathtakingly beautiful mountains that puncture vast, blue skies. You'll also find long stretches of rugged coastline, sandy beaches, wineries, orchards, forests and snowmelt-fed lakes.

There is even Canada's only desert: Osoyoos, in the southern Okanagan, which is home to rattlesnakes, scorpions and prickly pear cacti. If you're seeking unspoiled wilderness, then British Columbia is the perfect province to lose yourself in.

Vibrant Vancouver
If you want company, however, there are plenty of modern and lively cities and towns in British Columbia. Vancouver has scores of galleries, museums and bars. But even in Vancouver you're never too removed from nature: the city contains Canada's largest city park, Stanley Park.

Wilderness getaway
With seven national parks and numerous provincial parks, British Columbia is renowned more for its nature than its urban settings. From kayaking with whales off the coast to driving down a highway flanked by mountains, British Columbia will enchant you.

Geography

British Columbia is Canada's most westerly province, bordered to the south by the USA (Washington, Idaho and Montana states), to the east by Alberta, to the north by the Northwest Territories and the Yukon, and to the west by the Pacific Ocean and the ‘Alaska Panhandle'. It is mainly covered by virgin forests, and encompasses the towering Rocky Mountains (rising to 3,954m/12,972ft), vast expanses of semi-arid sagebrush, lush pastures on Vancouver Island's east coast, farmland in the Fraser River delta, and fruitland in the Okanagan Valley. The highest mountain is Fairweather at 4,663m (15,298ft). Between the eastern and coastal mountains is a lower central range. The coastal range sinks into the Pacific, with larger peaks emerging at Vancouver and Queen Charlotte Islands. The Columbia River flows from the Rockies into Washington State and out into the Pacific Ocean.