Hi Milly, when you go to Vancouver, take a couple of days on Vancouver Island. The ferry trip is quite cheap and you can book a bus all the way to Tofino. I took this route in the winter of 1999 and travelled through four-metre drifts of snow and rainforest; when I finally reached Tofino, a friend and I spent an afternoon perched on two enormous boulders on the beach writing and talking. The Pacific rolled in to the beach and we both got sunburnt.

Ask the locals where and when to find the whales and sea-otters. The latter tend to play in rocky inlets and will float on their backs and dissect sea-urchins on their stomachs with their paws; I spotted one next to the Wickanninish Inn. Buy a really good cagoule. It rains a hell of a lot out there. Don't underestimate the amount of time you can spend on a Pacific beach without getting bored.