Victoria - Vancouver by Air

Sure, you can use a major commercial airliner to fly you between Vancouver and Victoria, but first you have to get yourself out to the airport, wait in line-ups at the ticket counter and security checkpoints, fly, wait for your luggage, and then finally drive into downtown. Not very convenient if you ask me!

Luckily, there are other ways to get to Victoria from Vancouver and vice-versa and I was lucky enough to try two of them this week.

First off, there's the seaplane (also known as a floatplane) where you take off from one city harbour and land in the other. Downtown to downtown in about 30 minutes. There's nothing like taking off and landing in the water....
Pretty sweet all in all...
Though leg room can be lacking for taller folks (at least on the Harbour Air seaplane I took).

Then, there's the helicopter. How often can you say that you flew in a helicopter?!?  Oh yes, this is very cool and yes, it provides a different flight experience. The sound of the rotor becomes very repetitive after a while so be sure to take advantage of the complementary ear plugs after you take off and experience the sound firsthand. Some people may be lulled to sleep by the helicopter's motion and sounds but maybe that's just the result of capping off a hard day's work. There's a bit more legroom than on the seaplane but the HeliJet takes an extra 5 minutes or so and lands in the James Bay area so it's a bit further of a walk to the downtown core.

In either case, the views are spectacular as you fly above the two cities and islands.

Nevertheless, both modes of transportation are very viable options to go between Vancouver and Victoria, and depending on your time and budget, it would be silly not to consider them as very convenient means to travel between the two cities in a novel way.