Get ready to Explore Nanaimo! Use your passport for discounts at more than 40 area attractions, local businesses, and special activities between February 28 and May 20, 2011. Keep your passport over the summer to use during the bonus week October 11-16, 2011.

Have your passport initialed by at least one business in each category, and you will be entered to win bi-weekly prizes and a $1,000 Nanaimo Staycation package. Please note there is one entry per person and you must have your passport present to claim your prize.

The Package includes:

• A West Coast Fishing Trip with Intrepid Charters
• Dinner for two at Acme Restaurant
• $50 Gift Certificate for A & W Restaurants
• Tea for Two at The Grand Hotel Nanaimo
• One Overnight Stay at Painted Turtle Guesthouse
• … And Many more!

Passports are just $5.00 and can be purchased at (cash only):

• Beban Park Recreation Centre
• Nanaimo Aquatic Centre
• Oliver Woods Recreation Centre
• Bowen Park Social Centre
• Nanaimo Ice Rink
• All Serious Coffee locations ~ Commercial Street, Hammond Bay Rd, Southgate Plaza, Pipers location, and Beaufort Centre
• Tourism Nanaimo Visitor Centre ~ Beban House, on Bowen Road.

Visit the official 2011 Passport to your City website to view the participating businesses and to sign up to win prizes

For more information please contact Tourism Nanaimo at 250-756-0106.

I’ll admit it. I’m excited.

Why?

The 2011 Nanaimo Passport to your City will be here by the end of the month! Last year, with the help of five amazing people from Leadership BC, Tourism Nanaimo created Explore Nanaimo – Passport to Your City. The program was designed to get residents of Nanaimo out of their house to enjoy all the great attractions that the Harbour City has to offer — because, really, there are endless things to do in and around Nanaimo.

Passport to Your City was a great success; so this year, we’ve decided to extend the length of the program to three months! My goal is to have Nanaimoites spend the whole of Spring 2011 enjoying what their wonderful city has to offer, from local fairs and featured restaurants, to outdoor adventures by boat or learning about our city’s colourful history and everyday cultural experiences.

As I mentioned earlier, the Passport to your City program has been extend from three weeks to three months. Starting February 28th and ending May 20th, Nanaimo businesses will be offering special discounts for those residents and visitors who have purchased a Nanaimo Passport to your City. Just a sample of some included discounts:

• free admission for swimming or skating
• 2 for 1 on all Wild Play activities
• 10-30% off boating and fishing tours
• 2 for 1 coffee and lattes
• 2 for 1 appies at your favourite restaurants
• the list goes on and on…

So, are you ready to get your passport yet? Me too! A 2011 Nanaimo Passport to your City is only $5! Really, when you see all the discounts and promotions inside, you’ll realize that it’s an absolute steal of deal. Discounts range in value from $2 to all the way to $30.

Getting out and exploring your city can be so much fun, and if you’re lucky enough you could be the winner of a truly deluxe Nanaimo visitor experience. Once you have your passport and are ready to take advantage of all the great discounts, you can enter in for some awesome prizes and the ultimate Nanaimo Staycation Grand Prize. I am so excited to be able to offer such a great prize. We have had some amazing businesses donate prizes to this year’s grand prize. Here’s how you can qualify for the prizes:

Purchase a passport for $5 at one of the following locations:

• Participating Serious Coffee locations
• Nanaimo Aquatic Centre
• Beban Park Recreation Centre
• Tourism Nanaimo Visitor Centre on Bowen Road

Visit businesses within the passport and take advantage of the great discounts. Make sure to have your passport initialled by a staff person when you use a discount.

Once you have at least 5 initials, just register your Passport to your City on the official passport website. You will need the password found in your passport to register.

Once registered, you will be eligible to win biweekly prizes and the Nanaimo Staycation Grand Prize. To claim the prize, you must bring in your passport with initials from at least five locations!

So, spread the word. Don’t keep these great discounts a secret! Tell all your friends and family. This is going to be fun. I can’t wait to see everyone out exploring Nanaimo. If you have any questions about the passport please send me an email at amanda@tourismnanaimo.com or visit the official passport website!

Cheers,

Amanda Evoy

Manager, Marketing & Communications
Tourism Nanaimo

Every year, we produce two publications that serve as your guide to Nanaimo. Whether you’re looking for a place to eat, a bed to lay your head on, a hike through nature or a tour of Nanaimo’s history, these two guides have you absolutely covered.

Map and Attractions Guide 2011

• Why to choose Nanaimo
• Recreational activities
• Arts and cultural amenities
• Beautiful photographic imagery
• Where to stay
• How to get here
• Relocation information

Travel Planner and Accommodation Guide 2011

• Activities and attractions
• Dining
• Shopping
• Parks & trails
• Helpful maps

You can find them all over town, or, if you want to say “hi!”, you can also drop into one of our two visitor centres and we’d be happy to look through the guide with you and point out some of the great experiences available in Nanaimo!

Even better? You can check them out right now. Seriously. Both the 2011 Nanaimo Map and Attractions Guide and the 2011 Nanaimo Travel Planner and Accommodation Guide are available on our website.

Hiking

• Extension Ridge Trail
  This challenging trail has a huge crevasse/earthquake fissure as a main feature. Arbutus trees perched on rocky bluffs adorn the hike, and it is also a favourite with mountain bikers. Access from Colliery Dam; head south towards the village of Extension.
• Sugarloaf Mountain
  This is a shorter trail – a ten minute climb takes you to a spectacular view of Departure Bay, Mt. Benson and the coastal mountains. Access from Marion Way, off of Sherwood Drive.

Walking

• Westwood Lake
  An enjoyable 5 km walking trail surrounds Westwood Lake. Fairly flat and populated with ducks and salmonberry bushes. Access from JinglePot and Westwood Road.
• Buttertubs Marsh
  If you haven’t been – put this one on your must do list. Gorgeous bird sanctuary, easy walk or scooter ride on gravel surface. Access from Bowen Road and Buttertubs Drive.

Dog Friendly

For off-leash fun, visit these parks: (Don’t forget to renew your licenses…)

• Beban Park (entrance off Labieux Road)
• Cable Bay Trail (R.O.W. Nicola Road)
• Westwood Lake (designated area is located at the back of the park by the power lines only)

Three dog off-leash areas were opened in 2010 as one year pilot projects. The new locations include:

• Colliery Dam Park (upper dam)-The upper dam trail will be off-leash between 6AM-10AM starting May 1st, 2010
• Beaufort Park- A grassy portion of Beaufort Park accessed off the Chelsea Road parking and tennis area will be off-leash all day start May 1st, 2010
• Diver Lake Park- A grassy portion of Diver Lake Park will be off-leash between October 1st, 2010 and May 1st, 2011. During the summer, this area will be utilized as a sports field.

Kiera-Anne and Miss 604 visit Nanaimo! Photo © Kiera-Anne 2010

Kiera-Anne and Miss 604 recently joined Chelsea Barr of Destination Nanaimo for a fun-filled tour of our Harbour City! Not surprisingly, they loved it!

Here’s a bit of what Kiera-Anne had to say of her visit:

For far too long, Nanaimo has been a “drive through/drive thru” city for me: I would only ever “drive through” Nanaimo to get to the Comox Valley while hitting up a “drive thru” for some nosh on my way. As part of our escape, Rebecca and I took some well overdue time to explore the aptly-named Harbour City.

[...]

The final leg of our tour through downtown Nanaimo was spent weaving in and out of specialty shops, boutiques and artisan galleries. Gone are the days when Nanaimo’s shopping destination is only the mall; the city’s quarters are filled with rare finds and covet-worthy items any girl would gush over.

[...]

Downtown Nanaimo should undoubtedly be a key stop on your next drive up or down Vancouver Island.

You can read more about their Nanaimo adventure, and see many more photos, over at Kiera-Anne’s article called A Walking Tour Of Downtown Nanaimo.

Just shy of 90,000 friendly residents, Nanaimo sits on an edge of Vancouver Island, just a mere hour and a half drive from Victoria. As a city girl like myself would expect, life here is quieter and slower (despite new highrises like the Pacifica Development), but I was pleasantly surprised to find it not only quaint — after all, the downtown strip is just three blocks long — but also full of history (fun facts: Coast Salish natives were its first inhabitants, the city itself sits on a massive coal resource and, yes, it’s where the nanaimo bar was born).

It only took me two days and two nights to love this little town, and here are some reasons why you just might, too.

Read more…

We all know why Nanaimo and Vancouver Island are so great, and its wonderful to read about visitors discovering the charms of our Harbour City. May Globus has nothing but great things to say about Nanaimo over at Sweetlife. So what are you waiting for? Head on over and find out why she fell in love with Nanaimo and ‘Island Time’!

Dinner Murder Mystery at Acme Restaurant on Saturday at 7pm (doors open at 6:30pm). It’s the Hallowe’en event of the season as luminaries from the arts community gather for the wake of their devoted patron. But the ghoulish gathering takes on even greater significance when it raises the dead, and sends another to a similar fate. More importantly, can the worlds of ballet, opera and household cleaning all co-exist in the same room? An interactive evening of murder mystery fun that will test your skills as a detective while enjoying the hilarity. Dress theme is “Ghoulishly Black”. For ticket info check out www.englishentertainment.ca

Downtown Nanaimo is hosting Halloween activities for the little ones. Bring your little ghost, goblin, or spider man downtown for trick or treating from 12pm-3pm and look for the merchants with displaying black and orange balloons to find the candy loot. Trick or Treat maps can be found at the participating merchant. In addition, just outside Bocca in the Old City Quarter you will find Halloween crafting from noon-3pm and Halloween stories will be told at 2pm at the Harbour front Library. For more info check out www.dnbia.ca/events/downtown-trick-or-treat

Island Haunt presents its annual haunted house, the “Labyrinth of Darkness” at the Beban Park fairgrounds on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday from 7pm-11pm and admission is $8 per person. Enter into the world of evil darkness and come experience the ongoings that no-one talks about behind closed doors. ‘Labyrinth of Darkness’ is certain to have an impact on everyone who enters it. The International Association of Haunted Attractions identifies the ‘Labyrinth of Darkness’ as a High Startle, Low Gore attraction, signifying that the attraction will contain many startling scares using hidden corridors and misdirection. There will be little, if any, blood, guts or gore. For more information check out www.islandhaunt.com

Shmooze Productions presents The Rocky Horror Show LIVE at the Nanaimo Centre Stage. On a dark and stormy night, an unsuspecting couple “accidentally” are drawn into an unusual world. Come join Brad and Janet as they meet Riff Raff, Magenta, Columbia, Rocky, Eddie, Dr. Scott, Narrator and, of course, FrankNFurter! This musical extravaganza includes all the hits from the movie, including Science Fiction Double Feature, Dammit Janet and The Time Warp. Come on out Saturday or Sunday night and participate! For more info check out www.schmoozeproductions.com

Halloween Trick or Treat at Country Club Mall on Sunday from 4pm-5pm. This event is happening all throughout the centre and all of the merchants at Country Club Centre are looking forward to seeing you and have goodies for your treat bag. Have a safe and fun Halloween at Country Club Centre. Volunteers from “Crimestoppers” will be at the JYSK and Save on Foods entrances. Help support this organization by making a small donation.

Sink or Swim Scuba is hosting its 2nd Annual Costume Contest and Underwater Pumpkin Carving Contest at Madrona Beach in Nanoose. We’re celebrating Halloween in three different ways, dress up with Halloween flair and go for a dive, or carve a pumpkin under water wearing traditional dive gear or, do both, dress up and carve your pumpkin. Add some fun. Enter your underwater pumpkin masterpiece for a chance to win prizes. Join us for eats, treats! Register today by contacting us at Sink or Swim Scuba. Family and Friends welcome. For more info check out their website www.sosscuba.ca

Dive Outfitters is hosting an Underwater Pumpkin Carving Contest and Costume Party on Sunday from 12pm-3pm. A fun filled scuba diving event where the public plays an important role. We need you to come down and help judge the pumpkins that the divers so artfully carve under water. Divers work their way through an underwater challenge course on their way to the pumpkin patch to pick their pumpkin. They then carve their pumpkin under water and return to shore for judging. Hot chocolate is available along with hot dogs, cookies and other goodies. This event is a fundraiser for the BC Kidney Foundation to raise awareness of kidney disease and the need for organ donation to help those on the extensive organ transplant list. For more info check out www.nanaimodiveoutfitters.ca

/A\ Channel News has all the details:

Want to know the best spots to land a huge salmon or watch thousands spawn? Need help navigating the island’s wine trail? Looking for fun kid-friendly activities? It’s all here in the palm of your hand: The best of the island and its hidden gems – from Victoria to Port Hardy – with tips on peak times to see wildlife, which trails to avoid if you’re not hard-core, easy ways to save money and more.

Vancouver Island Exploration Guide is the island’s most complete app guide out there. And it keeps getting bigger. Download it and you get free updates for life. Here’s what else:

•130 entries & 742 colour photos
•Photo slideshows to help you decide where to go
•All-new insider hints, tips and descriptions from an islander
•Google maps with directions and pushpins for each entry
•GPS tracking so you know what’s nearby
•50+ FREE attractions and activities
•One-click website links and phone calls
•Offline content you can access anywhere
•Entries sorted by name, distance, price and region
•The ability to post interactive comments, save favourites, share photos

Make the most of your time on the island that readers of Conde Nast Traveller magazine consistently rank the “Best North American Island.” This easy-to-use app will take you to the best spots and give you practical advice along the way. Start traveling like a local today.

The Vancouver Island Exploration Guide for the iPhone and iPod Touch

Many of Tourism Nanaimo's wonderful Members are featured in the App!

You can download the Vancouver Island Exploration Guide for $2.99 on iTunes.

Sunset on Gabriola Island - Image © Aidan Moher

Nanaimo is full of wonderful day trip opportunities and Gabriola Island is one of absolute best. Just a quick ferry ride from Nanaimo Harbour, Gabriola Island is home to laid-back artists, beautiful beaches, bustling cafes and friendly people. Kiera-Anne, a popular Vancouver-based blogger, recently gushed about our little Gulf Island secret.

She says:

What makes Gabriola Island so incredible is the varied topography. Forests, beaches, rock cliffs, arbutus trees and brightly coloured floral splashes everywhere you look only add to the natural charm. Gabriola Island is home to three provincial parks, the most notable being Descanso Bay Regional Park. It’s where you will find the Malaspina Galleries – a display of breathtaking natural sandstone formations that seem more likely to be found on the planet Mars than coastal BC.

We couldn’t agree more! If you’re looking for a fun, easy day trip, Gabriola Island has everything you could ask of from one of the world famous Gulf Islands. So, whether it’s a sunny, spring morning, or a blustery fall afternoon, why not hop on the ferry and check out Gabriola Island, one of Nanaimo’s true gems!

About Kiera-Anne:

Born in the small fishing town of Port Hardy and raised in the Comox Valley, Keira-Anne uses her lust for the lost art of language to provide hyper-local Vancouver Island content with a healthy dose of life in the city. Though she escapes back to the Comox Valley at every chance she gets, Keira-Anne has called downtown Vancouver home for more than half a decade.

Head on over to Kiera-Anne’s blog to read more about her experience on Gabriola Island and see some wonderful photos.

It was the jump of a lifetime, a hundred and fifty foot heart-stopping drop to the river.

I held Olivia in preparation for a tandem jump, and our pulses were racing, beating like a jungle drum between us. The attendant pressed Olivia’s cheek into my shoulder, and then started the countdown. We held each other, and our breath, then suddenly…

We flew!

A few days ago we brought you King Cumming’s account of his first Bungy Jump at WildPlay Element Parks. It proved so popular that we wanted to follow up the article with something even cooler: a video of King’s jump. So, buckle up and enjoy the ride!

More information on Bungy Jumping at WildPlay Element Parks can be found on their website. You can also follow them on Facebook and Twitter.

The Celebrity Millennium sits in Nanaimo Harbour

Downtown Nanaimo pulled out all the stops and made a very good impression. From the Downtown Farmer’s Market with musical entertainment provided by Wellington Secondary School and John Barsby Community School band students, to an RCMP officer dressed to impress in full regalia, and many of the downtown restaurants serving up Nanaimo Bars like they were going out of style, there was never a dull moment, that’s for sure.

Busy, busy, busy!

Tourism Nanaimo & DNBIA team up to help visitors!

The passengers were from all over the world; we met people off the ship from Europe (Britain, Germany, the Netherlands), North America (as close as Seattle and as far away as Virginia, Maryland and Mexico) just to name a few. For some it was their first time to Nanaimo, and for others it was a second or third return trip to the Harbour City.

Courtenay & Zoe, ready to welcome you to Nanaimo, the Harbour City!

Some passengers took tours to nearby attractions like Cowichan Valley, the “Wine Valley of the North”; others headed west to Coombs and Port Alberni to see the goats on the roof and the McLean Saw Mill. Wherever they ended up the feedback was great, especially from those who stayed in Downtown. According to many of the passengers, Nanaimo is the most welcoming port they have ever been to, and with so many services set up specifically for the cruise ship passengers – like a free shuttle provided by DNBIA and Tourism Nanaimo from the harbour to the Old City Quarter and a DNBIA volunteer to greet every passenger that disembarked, and help them to plan out their day – it’s no wonder they felt welcomed!

Sunset on Ruxton Island

Taken on Ruxton Island, just a quick boat ride from Gabriola Island, Nanaimo Harbour and Ladysmith. We’ll never get tired of sunsets like this!

It was the jump of a lifetime, a hundred and fifty foot heart-stopping drop to the river.

I held Olivia in preparation for a tandem jump, and our pulses were racing, beating like a jungle drum between us. The attendant pressed Olivia’s cheek into my shoulder, and then started the countdown. We held each other, and our breath, then suddenly…

We flew!

The river raced towards us, but we felt as if we were soaring above the water. As if we had grown wings, we were weightless, endlessly floating. The moments extended into timeless flight– the few minutes felt like hours of experience.

The ground came launching up towards us, the cool air that blankets the river rushing past our faces. We whooped and hollered and still heard the intake of breath between us.

Bungy jumping is a thrilling, bucket-list trip of a lifetime. We live in Nanaimo, so the adventure is in our own backyard, but people come from all over the world to jump and fly and test their spirits.

It was worth every penny, I promise you that. Once you jump, you will be addicted to the thrill and dream of the experience over and over again.

Jumping with a friend is very cool, but I watched a girl jump before us, and she requested the head dip into the water. That looked like something I would try next, or maybe even the annual nude bungee jumping event, to raise money for charity.

As we were heading back home to rant and brag to our friends, we passed a giggling group of foreign exchange students racing and shrieking through the trees on zip lines, experiencing the west coast rainforest by way of Monkido Aerial Adventure Courses.

WildPlay is for the wild at heart, for the untamed imagination!

- King Cummings

More information on Bungy Jumping at WildPlay Element Parks can be found on their website. You can also follow them on Facebook and Twitter.

A team of monster hunters will return to Cameron Lake on Vancouver island next month to search for a creature that locals have swapped stories about for years.

The B.C. Scientific Cryptozoology Club first visited the area last September after an invitation from Oceanside Tourism to probe for evidence of the Cameron Lake monster.

[...]

The team will be at Cameron Lake Sept. 13-15.

The club says it has received reports about a creature in Cameron Lake since 2004.

Whether you believe in the myths or not, it sure is fun to wonder what lays beneath the surface of Cameron Lake, just a short drive away from Nanaimo. To find out what the experts think, you can read Monster hunters to continue search for Ogopogo-like creature in Vancouver Island lake on the Times Colonist website.

For more information on day trip ideas from Nanaimo, visit Tourism Nanaimo’s Driving Adventures page!

This fair isn’t just about agriculture, check out their website (www.viex.ca) for a complete listing of events from August 20-22. Event highlights include the all new family friendly Midway by Shooting Stars Amusement, musical talents including Steve Palmer, Johnny Inappropriate, and Aaron Prichett, tractor pulls, horse shows, skateboard demos, and the spookiest haunted house in town!