Seaplane & Scenic Flights

The seaplane terminals sit right on the water in downtown Victoria and downtown Nanaimo, which is the point: no airport transfer, no security queue, a thirty-five-minute flight to Vancouver's harbour and you are in the city centre. The Victoria–Vancouver transfer is listed here because it doubles as the best scenic flight on the south coast, low over the Gulf Islands and the ferry lanes.

Pure sightseeing flights loop over Victoria's harbour, the Saanich Peninsula and the strait, or from Nanaimo over the Strait of Georgia and the islands. They are short — often half an hour — and weather-dependent; low cloud grounds floatplanes more often than rain does.

Book the transfer flights early in summer. They carry commuters and cruise passengers, and a cancelled sailing on the ferries pushes people onto the planes.