Canada
Clayoquot Sound
Old-growth temperate rainforest so dense the canopy swallows sound and drips green light.
The canopy in Clayoquot Sound is so dense that when it rains — and it rains often — the water takes ten minutes to reach the forest floor, dripping through successive layers of moss, fern, and bark. The silence beneath these old-growth Sitka spruce and western red cedar is cathedral-deep.
Clayoquot Sound is a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve on the west coast of Vancouver Island, containing some of the largest remaining old-growth temperate rainforest on Earth. Trees here exceed 1,000 years of age and 70 metres in height. The sound gained international attention during the 1993 Clayoquot protests — the largest act of civil disobedience in Canadian history, which successfully halted industrial logging. Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation guides now offer cultural walks through their traditional territory, explaining the forest's Indigenous history and ecological significance. Free Spirit Spheres — hand-built wooden orbs suspended from the trees — offer accommodation that exists nowhere else.
Solo
Walking alone through rainforest this old and this quiet is a profound experience. The scale of the trees and the depth of the silence make you feel simultaneously tiny and completely present.
Couple
Sleeping in a wooden sphere suspended from old-growth trees, waking to the sound of rain on the canopy — Clayoquot Sound offers an intimacy with nature that no hotel can replicate.
- Some of the largest remaining old-growth western red cedar and Sitka spruce on Earth stand in this temperate rainforest.
- The canopy is so dense that rainfall takes ten minutes to reach the forest floor, dripping through layers of moss.
- Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation guides offer cultural walks through their traditional territory, explaining the forest's Indigenous history.
- Free Spirit Spheres — hand-built wooden orbs suspended from the trees — offer accommodation you literally cannot get anywhere else.
Wilderness glamping dinner: cedar-planked sockeye salmon cooked over a beach fire.
Oysters shucked on a floating dock, washed down with Tofino Brewing Company pale ale.
Foraged fiddleheads and wild mushrooms sautéed by the camp chef in the canopy.
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