Tofino, CA

The Tofino dinner everyone tells you to book — a second-storey Fourth Street room from the original chef-partners doing west coast cooking with foraged and wild ingredients. The cocktails are unusually good for a town this size and the potato-crusted oysters are the dish people order twice.

A Tofino institution that lost its old Campbell Street home to fire and reopened in the former 1909 Kitchen space at the marina — same crew, same west-coast bistro menu, much better water view. It's where locals still send their parents for a proper sit-down dinner.

The Wickaninnish Inn's special-occasion dining room, perched on the rocks at Chesterman Point with a 240-degree wall of Pacific. It's the most expensive table in town and the one out-of-towners build a Tofino trip around — a tasting menu of BC seafood and a wine cellar deeper than the rest of Vancouver Island combined.

The new sister room to Wolf in the Fog, in the long-vacant former SoBo space, doing coastal-Mediterranean small plates with the same locally-leaning pantry. Communal seating and an open kitchen counter make it feel more like a friend's dinner party than a Tofino destination dinner.

Tofino's oldest restaurant, in a 1949 white-clapboard building on Campbell Street, doing the classic Pacific seafood plates the town was built on. The dining room is casually upscale, the halibut and stuffed-halibut Schooner are the signatures, and reservations matter in summer.

The wood-fire dining room at Hotel Zed, where almost every plate gets time over open flame and the cocktail program is run by one of the more decorated mixologists on the island. Smaller room, ambitious kitchen — locals' pick for a date dinner that isn't the obvious downtown answer.

Long Beach Lodge's beachfront dining room overlooking Cox Bay — timber beams, a wood-burning fireplace and the kind of west-coast menu (porcini risotto, scallop and pork belly, bison tagliatelle) that earns it the highest OpenTable scores in town. Worth the 10-minute drive from the village.

The original orange food truck behind Live to Surf — the one that spawned a Vancouver mini-empire but started here in 2009 and is still the one to eat at. Order the tuna taco and the chocolate-diablo smoothie; eat them standing in the gravel lot under cedar trees, the way it's supposed to be done.

A take-out shack at the same gravel lot as Tacofino, run by a commercial fisherman doing the best fish and chips in town with whatever came off his boat that morning. Picnic tables out front, no reservations, the line moves fast.

Wildside's sister kitchen at Pacific Sands resort on Cox Bay, doing the same fish-forward casual menu plus burgers, breakfast and a covered patio with fire pits five minutes from the beach. The smarter call if you're staying out by the surf and don't want to drive into town for lunch.

A Campbell Street take-out window doing locally-sourced fried fish, prawn po'boys and one of the better soft-serves in town since 2001. Eat on the picnic bench out front or carry it to the harbour — it's the cheap, fast counter-meal Tofino regulars default to.

An industrial-park pizzeria-deli with 20-plus topping options, slow-rising dough and one of the more legit Italian-sandwich programs in town. Mostly take-out, mostly locals, and the most under-the-radar of Tofino's casual dinners.

A small old-world deli across the road from Tofino Brewing that cures and smokes its own meats and stacks them on grilled sandwiches. The build-your-own charcuterie boxes are the move if you're packing for the beach or storm-watching from your rental.

A casual downtown room doing nourishing bowls, burgers built on Vancouver Island beef, and a respectable cocktail list at sub-Wolf-in-the-Fog prices. The kind of place locals end up at when they don't want to commit to a $200 dinner but still want a sit-down.

The funky upstairs bakery on First Street that's been Tofino's morning meeting spot for decades — cheese buns the size of a softball, sticky cinnamon buns, breakfast pizza, and an excellent veg-leaning lunch board. Cash and debit only.

A bright Campbell Street espresso bar that also fries some of the best donuts on Vancouver Island and a tight all-day breakfast menu. It's where surfers walk in salt-dusted at 7am and where everyone else queues for a Tofino fog-burner at 10.

A small chocolate shop in the same Outpost cluster as Tacofino and Wildside, making truffles, fresh-fruit gelato in summer and the only proper hot chocolate within an hour's drive. The salted-caramel truffles are the souvenir locals send out at Christmas.

Two short interconnected loops (A and B) on either side of Highway 4 through some of the most accessible old-growth temperate rainforest on Vancouver Island. Boardwalks, ferns, hanging mosses, and the rare easy hike that genuinely lives up to the photos.

A 2km in-and-out through coastal rainforest that pops you out onto a quiet, driftwood-strewn beach at the north end of Long Beach. Closest national-park trailhead to Tofino and the easiest way to see Long Beach without crowds.

A network of forested boardwalks linking downtown to Tonquin, Middle and Third beaches — the easiest way to walk from your in-town rental to a Pacific beach without driving. About 4km end-to-end if you do the whole thing.

A 5km point-to-point through rainforest, bog and beach connecting Florencia Bay to the Kwisitis Visitor Centre at Wickaninnish Beach. The longer national-park hike that actually feels like a hike, with a payoff beach at each end.

Short 1.5km return through coastal forest from the Kwisitis Visitor Centre to South Beach — a small cobbled cove where Pacific surf detonates against the rocks and there's no swimming, just watching. Best storm-watching trail in the park.

A 0.8km boardwalk loop through a stunted-cedar bog ecosystem — the kind of weird, mossy, miniature-forest landscape that only exists on the wet outer coast. Flat, accessible, ten minutes top to bottom.

A 5km one-way coastal trail along Florencia Bay between the Wya Welcome Centre and Florencia Beach parking, with interpretive panels on Nuu-chah-nulth history and culture. Less rainforest, more open coast than the Wickaninnish Trail.

A short, steep scramble up from the south end of Cox Bay to a viewpoint over the bay, Frank Island and Chesterman. About 20 minutes up, roots and rocks, no maintained trail — the local sunset hike that's easy to miss from the beach.

A flat 15km paved-and-boardwalk multi-use path linking the Tofino townsite to Long Beach via Cox Bay, Chesterman and the highway corridor. The way locals bike from town to the surf without dealing with Highway 4 traffic.

The 2011-vintage craft brewery that put Tofino on the BC beer map — kelp stout, spruce-tree ale, helles and IPAs poured in a big, dog-friendly tasting room out in the industrial park. Food comes from Picnic across the parking lot, which is the way the locals do it.

A small craft distillery in the same industrial-park cluster as Tofino Brewing, doing west-coast botanical gins, organic vodkas and a tight cocktail flight in the tasting room. The quiet sibling to the brewery a few doors over.

The longest-running women-founded surf school on the coast (still co-ed) and the school National Geographic singled out for Canadian beginners. Small ratios, mostly Cox Bay lessons, and the most-recommended first-time surf in town.

A Campbell Street surf shop running daily group lessons at Cox Bay and Chesterman with one of the better student-to-instructor ratios in town. Good for families and anyone who wants a quieter beach than the Surf Sister crowd.

A local owner-operated surf school running small-group lessons (~6:1) at Cox Bay year-round, with the most flexible booking in town and instructors who tend to ride the same waves on their day off.

Tofino's oldest whale-watching operator, running 2.5-hour grey-whale and humpback trips out of the harbour from March through October, plus full-day Hot Springs Cove tours. Two boat options — the covered Zodiac for stability, the open Zodiac for the proper-wet experience.

An Ahousaht First Nation-owned operator running whale-watching, bear-watching and Hot Springs Cove tours with Indigenous interpretation woven through. Smaller boats and more context than the legacy operators — the more thoughtful version of the same trip.

A Campbell Street whale-watching and Hot Springs Cove operator that doubles as the most-visited whale museum in town — a free walk-in space with a full grey-whale skeleton hanging from the ceiling and Indigenous artifacts. Worth a stop even if you skip the boat.

A small-boat Zodiac operator on the village waterfront running tight, sub-12-passenger whale-, bear- and hot-springs trips. The pick if you want the open-Zodiac experience over the covered tour-boat one — wetter, faster, smaller group.

A surf-and-SUP rental shop on the way out to Chesterman that also runs beginner lessons, bike rentals and the easiest one-stop kit-up for a day on the water. Locals send first-timers here when they don't have an obvious school preference.

The closest of the big surf beaches to town, a wide arc of pale sand that splits around Frank Island at mid-tide and turns into one continuous beach at low tide. It's where everyone starts their first morning in Tofino and where storm-watching season makes its case.

Tofino's surf beach — a 1.5km west-facing arc that catches almost every swell direction and has the most consistent break in the area. Drift logs to climb, sand dollars to find, and a viewpoint trail at the south end that's the best free panorama in Tofino.

Tofino's town beach — a short trail and a couple of staircases from First Street drop you onto a small west-facing cove that gets the best sunsets in the village. Easier than driving out to Chesterman if you only have an hour.

The most protected and shallowest beach in the area, sheltered by Felice Island and warmer than the open-Pacific surf beaches. It's the kid beach — calm enough to wade, with kelp forests at low tide and resort rentals you can walk up to for paddleboards.

A 1986 Northwest Coast longhouse on Campbell Street with carved cedar walls, hammered-copper doors and the original prints of one of Canada's most-collected Indigenous artists. Free to walk in, and the most architecturally significant building in Tofino.

The former Tofino Botanical Gardens, transferred to Indigenous stewardship and reimagined as a 12-acre learning landscape — boardwalk paths through old-growth rainforest, totem poles, medicinal plant beds, and a view of the Tofino mudflats at low tide.

The 16-kilometre stretch of Pacific Rim National Park beach the region is named for — driftwood-strewn, ringed by old-growth rainforest, and dramatic enough that locals still pull off the highway for it. Park pass required to access the parking areas.

A water-access-only boardwalk through the ancient cedars of Meares Island, including the Hanging Garden Tree — a Western redcedar more than 1500 years old. The boardwalk loops about 2km through some of the densest old growth on the BC coast.