Sloquet Hotsprings
Sloquet hotsprings are one of my favorite Canadian locations, and if I hadn't been told about them by a friend of mine I never would have known about them or found them! You will absolutely need to have a car to get there as it's a long drive down a service road. These hotsprings are on Xa'xtsa First Nation land, and are completely natural and untouched. You can visit for the day, or you can bring a tent and stay the night, but beware that it is first come; first served and they only have around 20 spots for tents, so be sure to arrive early if you plan on staying overnight. Given that this land is sacred to the Xa'xtsa people you must wear swimwear and you're not allowed to drink alcohol in the pools.
How to get there: The closest town is Pemberton in British Columbia, from there take highway 99 North for about 1km until you see the turn for In-SHUCK-ch Forest Service Road, this is a long 100km bumpy service road, definitely make sure you have a spare tire in the trunk in case of emergency. We made it all the way there and all the way back, but in the final stretch of the journey we got a flat, fortunately we did have a spare though!
Once you get there, there is a fee, if you're just staying for the day it is $5 per person, or if you are camping it is $15 per tent. They only take cash which was a surprise for us given that Canada is a card based economy, and after driving 2 hours there were no ATMs to be found! Fortunately we had a lot of food in the car and they allowed us to trade a box of doughnuts and a jumbo bag of Cheetos for the day parking instead. They specifically asked that if we ever told anyone else about our trip to make sure that they knew to bring cash with them, so here is your warning!
The hotsprings themselves were amazing, there were 5 or 6 different pools which were cascading down at different heights and different temperatures, and at the very bottom there was a freezing river! Jumping between them was a ton of fun and we easily spent 5 hours relaxing in the hot springs and splashing about in the river, we didn't even notice when it started to rain!
As far as I am aware there is nowhere at the campsite to buy food, so bring some food and snacks with you, especially if you're camping because the closest store is in Pemberton!
Sloquet hotsprings are amazing, and completely worth the drive!
