A week is exactly enough for one honest Vancouver Island loop: city, wild coast, and a gentle east-side return. Here's the route I'd book for a first trip, with the drive times that make it work and the ferry trick that saves your last morning.
Worth the trip at one-loop scale. Add the North Island to a seven-day plan and you'll mostly experience the island through a windshield.
First, book the ferries open-jaw
This route starts in Victoria and ends on the east coast, so don't sail round-trip through one terminal. Arrive Tsawwassen to Swartz Bay (1 h 35 m) and leave from Nanaimo — Departure Bay or Duke Point — on the way home. The fares work the same, and it saves you the 1 hour 45 backtrack to Victoria on checkout morning. Reserve both sailings in summer.
The shape of the week
The loop threads the south, crosses to the west coast, then ambles back up the gentler east side. It's built around where you sleep, because the bases decide whether a day feels relaxed or rushed.
- Nights 1-2 — Victoria. Swartz Bay is 30 minutes from downtown. Day one is the city on foot: Inner Harbour, Beacon Hill, a long dinner you booked ahead. Day two, drive the Sooke-to-Port Renfrew coast — about two hours each way at the far end — for tide pools, big trees and a beach lunch.
- Night 3 — Cowichan (or push on). An hour north over the Malahat for wine, cider and a slow afternoon around Duncan. Short on time? Skip it and drive straight west.
- Nights 4-5 — Tofino or Ucluelet. The long day: roughly 3.5 hours from Cowichan, or 4.5-5 from Victoria if you skipped the valley. Fuel up in Port Alberni, stretch your legs at Cathedral Grove, and take the last winding 90 minutes of Highway 4 unhurried. Tofino for buzz and surf lessons; Ucluelet for quiet, the Wild Pacific Trail, and gentler prices.
- Nights 6-7 — Parksville or Comox. About 2.5 hours back east. Parksville means Rathtrevor's warm low-tide sand and a 40-minute run to the Nanaimo ferries; the Comox Valley adds farms and mountains if you'd rather end on variety than convenience.
The drives that matter
Two stretches set the tone. The Sooke-to-Port Renfrew road is slow and twisty; give it most of a day and don't promise anyone dinner reservations back in Victoria. The Highway 4 crossing is the one people underestimate: a real mountain highway with no alternate route, where a single closure can swallow hours. Drive it rested and fuelled, never in the dark on arrival day.
Everything else is forgiving. The east-coast leg is the easiest driving of the week, which is exactly why it belongs at the end.
What to cut if your week shrinks
Plans slip. Here's the order I'd trim, first cut first:
- Cut the Cowichan night and drive south-to-west in one go. You lose a lovely valley, not the trip.
- Drop to one east-coast night — Parksville or Comox, not both.
- Trim the Port Renfrew day to a Sooke half-day if Victoria itself has hooked you.
What I wouldn't cut: two nights on the west coast. One night there means you arrive frazzled, sleep, and leave — and the beaches are the reason you crossed the island. And leave the North Island for another trip. Port Hardy is spectacular and genuinely far; bolting it onto this week turns a holiday into a logistics exercise.
Plan with: BC Ferries | DriveBC | Vancouver Island Travel | Parks Canada - Pacific Rim. Last reviewed July 2026.
