An amazing value to stay so near the ocean in one of the most beautiful areas we’ve visited. We loved being able to see the ocean from one of the windows, and having a path down to a private lookout over the rocks. One morning I saw a couple seals bobbing along the coastline!
The space itself was clean and no frills, had everything we needed to make a meal one night and a heater for when things got chilly. Something to note is that it is next to and behind the owners’ home, so to get that private feeling you do have to keep half the windows closed, which can impact the “treehouse” feeling. Windows are screenless and can’t really be opened unless you’re okay with bugs/bees flying in. There’s a garage/carport right in front of the treehouse porch, so we opted to head down the path to the lookout instead to have morning coffee time (takes a couple mins and gets steep in spots, so note if you have trouble with that sort of thing). That lookout was why’d we’d booked the place though, so I loved it! We couldn’t make a fire because of wildfire ordinance, which was a bummer but understandable.
Being next to French Beach and close to hiking along the San Juan trails was amazing. Sooke is a great town and we loved taking whale watching and kayaking tours from there. Definitely note that restaurants can close early/randomly during the off season, and you’ll need to drive 25 mins from the Airbnb to get to Sooke. One of the two restaurants in Shirley was closed while we were there, so we made the drive to Sooke often. One night we finished hiking/exploring near Port Renfrew too late to make it to a restaurant (the nearest one would have been 45 mins away) so ate scrambled eggs for dinner :) We definitely could have been more prepared, but don’t often purchase a ton of groceries on trips because we love eating out so much. Skip the fancier seafood in Sooke and go to Route 14- the mussels, fish and chips, and tuna nicoise were incredible.
All in all I’m so happy about this stay! We kind of built our trip around it to be honest, and absolutely adored being so close to the coast and getting to see so much wildlife.