Across the strait · 90 minutes by ferry
Victoria, B.C., by Ferry
The MV Coho sails from downtown Port Angeles straight across the Strait of Juan de Fuca — ninety minutes over open water, and you step off in the middle of Victoria’s Inner Harbour, with the Parliament domes two blocks away and another country’s afternoon in front of you. The terminal is ten minutes from the estate, which makes a proper international day trip about as easy as it will ever get.
- Drive
- 10 minutes to the terminal
- Crossing
- 90 minutes each way
- Papers
- Passport, passport card, or enhanced WA license
- Ashore
- Up to nine daylight hours in summer
How the day works
In summer the first boat leaves Port Angeles at 8:20 in the morning and lands you in Victoria before ten; the last sailing home departs at 7:30 in the evening — a genuine nine-plus hours ashore, enough for the gardens, the museum, tea, and an unhurried wander. The schedule thins to two boats, and a much shorter day, in winter.
Walk on. The crossing runs about $25 each way for adults, half for children, no reservation needed — just be at the terminal thirty minutes early. Taking the car costs about $88 each way plus a summer reservation you’ll genuinely want, and the city center meets you at the gangway anyway; everything worth a day is on foot from the dock.
Coming home, you clear US pre-inspection in Victoria before boarding — build in queue time, and carry originals of everyone’s documents.
Papers, please
- Adults need a passport, a US passport card, or a Washington enhanced driver’s license — originals only, no photos of documents.
- Children 15 and under traveling with their parents: a birth certificate is enough.
- Prices ashore are in Canadian dollars; cards work essentially everywhere.
Ashore
- Butchart Gardens — the celebrated gardens at Brentwood Bay, forty-five minutes north. No car needed: a sightseeing shuttle leaves from beside the Empress, or city bus 75 makes the trip the slow way. Give it half a day; summer admission is about CAD $44.
- Afternoon tea at the Fairmont Empress — the harbor’s grand ritual, about CAD $114 a head and worth booking well before you sail.
- The Royal BC Museum — a short walk from the dock and open daily, though some of its historic galleries remain closed for a long renewal; the feature exhibitions carry the visit.
- The free wanders: the Parliament lawns, the causeway buskers, and the float homes and fish-and-chips of Fisherman’s Wharf, fifteen minutes along the water.