Kids will be impressed by the gentile surrounds of the mammoth Empress Hotel.

The Royal British Columbia Museum on Belleville Street has an enormous scope – more importantly, it has dinosaurs and woolly mammoths. Exhibition halls, The Open Ocean, is a remarkable excursion into a mock-up of the various levels of the ocean

Victoria Bug Zoo on Courtney Street informs the young ones about all sorts of creepy crawlies.

Victoria Butterfly Gardens on Benvenuto Avenue, outside Victoria, near the entrance to Butchart Gardens, is home to over 30 species of butterfly.

Beyond Victoria

 From Port Alberni, on the way to Tofino, why not take a trip up Alberni Inlet on the Lady Rose. This stunning journey up forested fjords, stopping at isolated communities of floating homes (and an increasing number of less-charming constructed holiday homes) takes you past the Broken Group Islands to Bamfield, the original terminus of the trans-Pacific telegraph line. Now home to a large, University-sponsored scientific research station, the community retains it's charm primarily due to the fact that the West Side of Bamfield Inlet is not accessible by road. The beaches on the west side of the peninsula are stunning, and you can choose a cove to yourself. The trip on the Lady Rose can be done as a day trip, with a couple of hours in Bamfield, or book into lodgings and stay for a couple of days of idealic beach play.