To be fair, it's not as bad as I make it out to be. If anything, it's a sad state of affairs with increased homelessness and a few vagrants roaming about, but nothing like the Downtown Eastside in Vancouver or Skid Row.

But please, if you are ever visiting London, ON, understand it is nothing like London, UK. :lol

Only good thing about London is Grand Bend, beautiful beach.

Back in my university days, people always told me that the parties at Western (University, in London, ON) were awesome, and unlike geeky school, the chicks were hawt too. Such a shame that I never made an effort to find out.

I did briefly meet a very pretty (Caucasian) chick from Paris, ON in a wedding party, but of course I never managed to get her contact info... FailFish

You foool !!! You foooo !!!!!!

Speaking of short getaways, I have some vacation days to burn by myself since I have more days than my wife's work.

Thinking in a few weeks of doing a 1 night solo roadtrip to do Duffy Lake Loop since I have never done it before, maybe overnight in Lilooet. It would be mid-week to hopefully avoid traffic.

Any suggestions on cool places to stop at along the way and to see or places to stop at for coffee/snacks? It will be a very chill and easy going drive rather than trying to burn the entire loop in a day.

Lilloet - walk over "the old bridge", not exactly thrilling but then again its lilooet......if you want to 1up the thrill level, walk on the edge of it

Bring some swim shorts and a towel, hop into lower joffre lake. If its 30C outside, the water will still be 1C.

Blackbird Bakery in Pemberton, also Barn Nork Thai if you want some Asian food up there. I really like the wines from Fort Berens in the Lillooet area.

Go to the states man. You can get to long beach Washington in 5 hours. It’s beautiful there. Enjoy some sun, go fly a kite, go see if you can find a country wife, start a Bon fire on the beach (you can also drive on that beach for miles and miles).

To do it in 1 day I would need to do I5 which sux and also Seattle traffic.

11 years ago, before we had distractions like kids and wives, me and my buds did a Top Gear-esque convoy road trip down the Washington and Oregon coast. We stopped over in Forks (setting of Twilight), got a nice beach house at Rockaway Beach, then over to Portland for Beer Festival and strippers, and back up the I5. It was fantastic.

But yeah that was several nights and with a few buds. They're all losers now who have to "take care of their kids" and would never be able to line up a few nights where all of us would be able to do such a trip again.

any beaches or other places to visit in the states that's much closer, like an hour or less from the border?

my old ass doesn't like long road trips anymore.

Birch Bay, WA

If you're looking for a beach to take a dip along the way, checkout Strawberry Point.

How about Tofino?

You'll get a great driving road there and back

You'll get a great ferry ride

You'll get great food at the wolf and the fog

You'll get great surfing if you wanna get into that

$4000 later..

We’re looking at a Mexico trip next year with about 15 family members and it’s hard to believe $1000/$1500 taxes in used to be the norm for places like Riu etc.

All these half ass place I don’t really want to even go to start at $3000 a person.. and in Mexico an “adult” is over 12 years old, so full fare for the families with kids

Que?! It’s that expensive now ?! da fuck. I just went like 2 years ago and it was only uhhhh 1500 a person including airfare and a good deluxe room at the dreams tulum

Room was ocean facing and even had a hot tub.

You gotta go at like 4am. That way you’ll get past Seattle and Tacoma and then you can head towards ocean shore with no traffic.

If you’re okay sleeping a night somewhere, start driving at 11pm and then rest when you past Tacoma. Then you’re ready to go for the day.

When you come back, As long as you return back to Tacoma/seattle before 2pm you won’t get stuck.

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Not a day trip but I always wanted to go see barkerville up in buttfuck nowhere bc. I’m a big history nut so old gold mining towns are my jam. Too bad nobody wants to ever do that kinda shit and I’ll likely have to do it alone one of these days. Also it’s pretty close to some natural hot spring that I wanted to check out.

I went to Barkerville as a kid and it was awesome. I'd love to go back there one day.

You don't have to go to Tofino if you want beaches. We just came back from Parksville a month ago, which is only 30mins from Nanaimo and they have great beaches there. I also heard Courtney/Comox has white sand beaches there. So if you don't want a three hour drive to Tofino, check that out.


We also did a trip to Cancun in April. 7 nights. Two adults, One four-year-old, One one-year-old (sat in our laps) at Sensira Resort in Cancun with Air Canada Vacations. $4,300 CAD Total, direct flight with air Canada, includes transfers, and one checked bag each. We used a site called Escapes.ca to book, it's pretty good because once you find a resort you like, you can check the entire calendar to see when the cheapest week to book is, so if you're flexible, it's a great way to get a good deal.


We just booked Honolulu for October and it was about $4,500 CAD for the flight and the hotel at Hilton Hawaiin Village. Mexico is definitely the best value for family vacations, but we like Hawaii more. It's more expensive, but Hawaii feels safer and more western.

Thx for the suggestions guys. Definitely interested in doing a swim or cold plunge if given the opportunity.

Not really considering other places. I've done the Tofino/Wolf and Fog trip before. Washington coast too far for just one night; if I'm gonna stay overnight I would do it at the beach and not past Tacoma just so I can skip traffic.

I did the 4am drive before to catch a flight out of SeaTac when I did my solo Chicago trip, I still ran into traffic then.

Try the American San Juan islands. Their ferry system is cheap and grabbing a ride to port Townsend is both historic and interesting. The ferry departed from that fort uhhh Fort Casey ?! Or something like that.

The San Juan island are gorgeous and they got some interesting beaches.

Good call we took that route on the Oregon coast trip, definitely a neat experience.

I heard a group of old men on RS who would love to start the trip at 5am on a random, last minute Sunday. :concentrate:

My sister is in Parksville with her kids and my mom right now! She goes a couple times a year with them, kids love it. She wants to move over there I think.

arrgh but its almost 9h drive. And most of it is a lame-ass drive.

https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Vanc...!3e0?entry=ttu

But I love these old time towns. I was going to head to Idaho this fall/late summer for my annual solo road trip to check out some of their ghost towns/small towns but I got some work commitments that's preventing me from going.

https://www.bpmcdn.com/f/files/quesn...kerville_1.jpg

also its hot as fuck this year down in the states

It was our first time there. I had no idea that place even existed. It was such a great place for families. We can't wait to go back. I actually wanted to go back before the summer is over, but we have too much going on right now.

I'm already planning our trip next year. The beach is amazing. Sandy beach with tide pools with crabs and sand dollars. It's the perfect family destination.

I can't believe i've never been there before.