Established in 1843 by James Douglas as a Hudson's Bay Company Fort, the City of Victoria has a proud history of British custom. Conde' Naste Traveler Magazine reader's poll rated Victoria one of the top ten cities to visit in the world. The picture-perfect Inner Harbor is surrounded by many of Victoria's beautiful character buildings and premier attractions: the stately Empress Hotel, provincial Legislative Buildings, museums and galleries.

The city offers a myriad of services and attractions catered to its year-round flow of business people and visitors, both local and foreign. First stop should be the Visitor Info Center on Wharf Street, a well-staffed office dispensing useful information on the sights of the city and the things to do in and around Greater Victoria.

Romantic as Downtown Victoria may be, with its delightful natural harbour and the Olympic Mountains of Washington State on the horizon, the provincial capital of British Columbia is less a museum piece nowadays than it is a tourist mecca.

Visitors pour in to view vast sculpted gardens and London-style double-decker buses, to shop for Irish linens and Harris tweeds, and to soak up what they believe is the last vestige of British imperialism in the Western Hemisphere.

Location: Victoria is located on the southern tip of Vancouver Island, which is situated off the southwest coast of British Columbia. Visitors from the Lower Mainland of BC travel to Victoria by ferry from the BC Ferries' Tsawwassen terminal in Delta. Sailing time is 90 minutes for the 27-mile (44-km) distance across the Strait of Georgia to the Swartz Bay terminal, 20 miles (32 km) north of Victoria.

Visitors from the United States can journey to Victoria via ferry from Seattle, Anacortes in northwest Washington, or from Port Angeles on Washington's Olympic Peninsula. The Anacortes ferry arrives in Sidney, at the Washington State Ferries terminal, 3 miles (5 km) south of Swartz Bay. The MV Coho from Port Angeles arrives in Victoria's Inner Harbour, as does the Victoria Clipper from Seattle's Pier 69. The Olympic and Saanich Peninsulas are separated by the Strait of Juan de Fuca, a 17-mile (27-km) stretch of (almost) open ocean.

By air, visitors arrive at either Victoria Harbour (by float plane) or Victoria International Airport on the Saanich Peninsula, about 17 miles (27 km) north of Victoria.