Things to see/do between Victoria and Ucluelet on Vancouver Island?

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As someone who lives between Victoria and Ucluelet, let me have a crack at it.

Even though I'd try to fit in two or three stops to break up the long drive, you should spend as much as time on the West Coast as possible. There's more than just Ucluelet: Pacific Rim National Park Reserve is just a short drive away and at the end of the peninsula, there is the town of Tofino.

Back to the drive: Chemainus is known for its murals, so you could swing through town to take a look at them (the highway doesn't let you see them). Nanaimo is the biggest city on the island after Victoria, but I there's probably not much reason to stop. Parksville and Qualicum, on the other hand, are pleasant stops and have nice beaches -- but you'll be seeing better beaches on the West Coast.

If you leave the highway early, Coombs has the Old Country Market.

You should definitely make time to take a walk at Cathedral Grove, which is between Coombs and Port Alberni, just after Cameron Lake, in MacMillan Provincial Park. There are also waterfalls just before the lake (Little Qualicum Falls), which are nice and only a short (few hundred meters) walk from the carpark.

The city of Port Alberni is the last stop before the West Coast and is a good stop for fuel and food.

Most of the towns have some sort of museum of varying degrees of interest, but none of them come close to the Royal British Columbia Museum in Victoria. Between the trip up and the trip back, you can probably see most of what I've mentioned here and not prolong your travel time too much.

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We did the drive from Victoria to Ucelet and back on the same day in May of 2014. Next time we'll stay the night. It was a beautiful drive. Remote. We stopped to take photos along the way. It rained off and on with snow occurring in the mountain tops. We stopped alongside the lake for photos and in the park to walk next to the trees. We found a decent place to eat in a town on the way to Terrace Beach which turned out to be the easiest approach to the water for the seniors in our group. Ucelet didn't appear to be overdeveloped. Pacific Northwest beauty at its finest.

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