I always wanted to live on an island in a foreign country. Someplace that you have to take a slow boat or a float plane to reach. A lush hunk of rock with white sand beaches and turquoise waters, coconut rum, pretty locals with sexy accents - that sort of thing. I just didn't expect it to be in Canada.
Next weekend, I again say goodbye to the shining city that has come to feel more like home than I would have ever thought when I moved here six years ago. I'll load as much of my stuff as I can get into my car and then, surprisingly, point it north. I'll cruise up to end of the US and what feels like the end of the earth, and there I'll catch a slow boat that will take me off the map and into my new island life.
By boat, Vancouver Island is two and a half hours from Seattle, two hours from the city of Vancouver, and an hour and a half away from Port Angeles, the nearest US town on the Olympic Peninsula. It is almost 300 miles long, 60 miles wide, and has 600,000 people living on it. While it is not exactly tropical, the southern region of the island is the warmest Canadian place in winter and the driest in summer.
It has beaches, which are not fringed with palm trees nor covered in white sands, but are home to blue herons, seals, otters, and even the occasional washed-up Orca. It has microbreweries, a strong local music scene, and friendly locals who speak with a, well, endearing if not sexy Canadian accent. Vancouver Island is big enough to have mysteries and regions to explore and isolated enough that I'll know I'm on an island.
I haven't actually spent that much time living on islands so I'm excited to give it a try. I'm packing my bottle of suntan lotion, my floral Hawaiian shirts, and neon beach towels. They fit right in the suitcase next to my rain jacket, thermal socks, gore-tex hat.
