Blogger, skier and style lover Sophia Metzler from maybeyoulike.com has already been to Canada a couple of times – and is far from being done coming back and discovering more beauty…

Words & photos by Sophia Metzler

The first time I went to Canada, was 6 years ago. I saw a wolf, the Niagara Falls and collected crawlers. But the most important thing: I was on the wrong side of Canada (no offence). To me, BC is by far the most awesome part of Canada, the part with which I fell in love with. In 2009 I went on a roadtrip through BC and Alberta with my best friend. It was so amazing, the nature, the people, wild animals – gosh! From the this trip on, my heart was beating for Canada – I had to come back! “Imagine this during the winter time!” I said to my friend.

So I came back last February. With no pressure to scour all the tourist highlights, because, you know, I’ve been here before… During the two weeks I had the luck to stay at a friends house. Because it would have been a liiiittle bit cold to camp outside. Anyway, it was the perfect little town to stay – Squamish. One hour to Vancouver and a little less to Whistler. (For all the girly-girls: Twilight was filmed in this town, haha.) It’s really rainy there, but I did not care. During winter time there is not that much to do in Squamish (in summer its THE climbing & mountainbike mecca). But I like the people there so much, first thing in the morning you go to the Bean, get a coffee, chat with lovely people and start your day. After 3 days the girls there welcomed me with “Your usual?”. Awesome!

I took my usual “Togo” and went to Whistler – unfortunately I had no fresh snow, but Whistler is fun. If you go there, make sure to go on the peak2peak! Awesome view! There is not that much more I can say about Whistler… fancy and expensive. I had the feeling, that the people who live around Whistler don’t go out to ski that often there, because nearly everyone owns a snow mobile and is going backcountry. I would have prefered that as well!

A good alternative to Whistler are the mountains around Vancouver – Mt Seymour, Grouse Mountain and Cypress Mountain. I went to the first two, Seymour and Grouse – they are really fun and not that expensive. We went to Grouse Mountain at my last day and it was snowing a loooot, so at least I had one powder day in Canada!

We also went to the beautiful Vancouver Island. You have to take the ferry from Horseshoebay to Nanaimo. Than we drove all the way to the best surfing spot – Tofino. My friend rented this amazing little house in the middle of the rainforest. Including a hot tub and a fire place! At our first day there, only the boys went into the water! (One was from Costa Rica and had never surfed in cold water before, but he was killing it – that’s what the other guys said, I had no clue about surfing by the way.) But on the next day we went to this sweet, little surfshop and rented a wetsuit for me and drove to Long Beach for my first surfing, ok the second, but you cant count my first time. I have to say – it was not as cold as I expected. I thought I would die, surfing in February in Canada? WTF?! But it was totally ok! I was hitting the withewash, hehe. Another thing you HAVE to try, when you go to Tofino – go to the Tofino Brewing Company! You can taste every beer they have and then choose which one you wanna buy.

And here are some last and random things you can do, if you are around Sqamish. Go to Paradise Valley, you will see the signs when you drive on the Highway North99. Such an stunning place, really. Go there! If you are in Vancouver – go to the Aquarium, it’s worth it. I went there twice!

That’s it. That’s why I love Canada! There are still so many awesome places to discover – it was not the last time, BC!