Why you should visit Ucluelet and Tofino in the off season
The first weekend of November, I took a little trip to wash my brain in the salty ocean air. My friend, my boyfriend, and I drove two hours, took a two-hour ferry and then drove another two hours to stay at a cute beachside cabin in Ucluelet for a few days. I would recommend checking out this small town during off season when it isn’t swarming with tourists. Here is everything we did and ate during our three-day mini-vacation.
We stayed at this cute little cabin with a staircase leading down to a private little beach and a staircase leading up to a rugged forest. From the pebble-filled beach, we saw a family of sea lions travel down the inlet and Dozer discovered his love of retrieving seaweed from the ocean. We spent the night trying to assemble a 1000-piece puzzle on the little round kitchen table.
The first day we walked down Willowbrae trail to explore Florencia Beach. The trail was really simple, and very quiet even for a Saturday. We could’ve gone to Halfmoon Bay beach as well, but the stairs down to that beach were brutal, so we just stuck to Florencia.
In Ucluelet, we hit up The Break for coffee and some baked treats, and Ukee Dogs Taqueria for hot dogs and burritos. 
We spent the better part of the rainy afternoon in the Ucluelet Aquarium. No joke, visiting this aquarium might’ve been the best part of this trip. This little aquarium is Canada’s first catch-and-release aquarium, and all of the intricate exhibits recreate the aquatic habitats from Barkley and Clayoquot Sounds. There are even touch tanks where you can pet sea cucumbers and starfish. Some of the exhibits were so beautiful I wanted to shrink myself down and live inside of them. The staff were all super friendly and passionate and able to answer any question, no matter how silly, about literally anything that was crawling around inside any of the tanks. We even got to see them feed a few different tanks. Honestly, 10/10 would recommend this aquarium to anyone who visits Ucluelet.
The next day we walked the Lighthouse Loop trail, which was just a 20-minute walk away from our cabin. We took our time appreciating every ocean view and admiring every mushroom we encountered along this 3 km loop. 
In the afternoon we drove up the Pacific Rim Highway to Tofino. Of course, we had to stop to pick up tacos and burritos from the OG Tacofino food truck. Then we visited Bravacados Bistro, a vegan restaurant I’ve wanted to try out for a while. I had an extraordinary tofu benedict and got their self-published cookbook to add to my collection. Sadly, I’m just learning that they’ve sold the business, so it may not be open come 2024.
We walked off all that food at Chesterman Beach, where we watched surfers and discovered Dozer’s immense fear of big clumps of mussels. We also hit up Long Beach on the drive back to Ucluelet, staying until darkness came.
Back at the cabin, Keighley got me hooked on Below Deck and we ended up watching nearly an entire season of this trashy reality TV show I couldn’t look away from.
Before making the journey back to the mainland, we visited Big Beach and said goodbye to the Pacific Ocean.
