Nanaimo Bed and Breakfast

Inexpensive motels line Nicol Street and Terminal Avenue North along the Island Highway (Hwy 19A) in Nanaimo. Throughout Canada, bed and breakfasts provide more memorable visitor accommodations than motels, and Nanaimo is no exception. You’d have to search long and hard to find a better deal than Bev and Sandy’s Place.

This two-room bed and breakfast just south of Diver Lake is due west of the Tourism Nanaimo Visitor Information Centre at Beban Park on Bowen Road. Follow your map to 2734 Camcrest Drive (detailed driving instructions are included on Bev and Sandy’s website). You can reserve by email through the site, or call tel. 1-250/758-4983.

The nightly rates at Bev and Sandy’s are $45/55 single/double yearround (third persons pay $15 extra). If you stay six nights, the seventh night is free. No GST is charged here. The lovely “Garden Room” has a heated tile floor and lots of light. The “Victoria Room” is the former master bedroom of the house. Each room has its own private bathroom and a television set. Between the rooms is a common area with a fridge stocked with breakfast goodies. Smokers will have to step outside to nurse their addiction, but pets are usually welcome (mention your animal when booking). Guests have their own separate entrance.

Bev and Sandy Cole are a friendly local couple who will pick you up at the ferry terminal or airport at no additional charge. If you’re arriving by air, what you save on the taxi fare into town will almost pay for your first night! Serious hikers might ask Bev to take them up Mount Benson, Nanaimo’s signature mountain. The Well Pub, discussed elsewhere on this blog, is only a 15-minute walk or five-minute drive away. Bev and Sandy’s Place offers Nanaimo visitors a very different travel experience from what they’d get at an impersonal motel and it’s recommended.