Trip Cost $700, 5 days
The Okanagan is the Florida of Canada. Lot’s of fruit orchards, wine, rich people and retirees. While I’m mainly into partying, exotic locations, amazing churches and ancient ruins, it wouldn’t seem like the place for me, but if you go with the right people, it can be amazing!
My husband’s best friend had recently moved to a town called Vernon. Not the greatest place to visit. To put it gently, I never knew the smell of crack until I visited. Friends of mine searched for some famous British Columbia *cough* tobacco, and actually had a difficult time finding anything that soft. Instead, various shady characters offered pretty much everything you would see on a season of intervention. We wanted to go out to a bar, but quickly learned the only thing open past 10 were the two strip clubs in town. I’m an open minded woman who has seen her fair share of peelers in the past, but this was like nothing I’d ever seen before. A cover, and a bad one, for a brothel. The dee-jay had scars from what looked like a knife fight, and the girls “danced” in a dark corner of the club and were taken out by different men for….private dances. A shady experience, but a necessary one for a travel agent. When anyone asks me where they should visit in B.C. I know exactly where to send them.
Kelowna. A tourist-y city, and the main city of the Okanagan Valley. Lot’s of amazing ochre’s, wineries, great hotels, unique restaurants, shopping, and a lovely beach around the Okanagan Lake.
Of course, my friends and I got drunk at other strip clubs. What can you do?
All in all, anywhere in the Okanaga Valley is great place for any short vacation. If I weren’t hell bent on retiring to Costa Rica, this would be my second choice.