How to Get There 

Sooke is less than an hour drive from Victoria, BC on Vancouver Island. To get to the island from the mainland you can take a ferry, fly into Victoria airport, or take a seaplane right into Victoria harbour! Sooke isn’t a very walkable destination, so we recommend either driving onto the ferry, or renting a car on the island. We drove from Victoria and it’s a really beautiful drive, the island has so much natural beauty!

The Resort 

Prestige Resorts has locations all over the province, and their Sooke resort is truly stunning. The property is right on the water and it has the most beautiful ocean views! They are also pet-friendly, which means that little Theo got to come along, and that is so much fun for us. We spent our mornings cozied up in our room relaxing, and our afternoons exploring the property and taking Theo for walks by the water. The full service resort also has an on-site cafe, restaurant, bar, fitness centre, spa, and pool, so you’ll have everything you need during your visit! It’s such a perfect place to slow down and enjoy island living, we absolutely loved it. 

The Rooms

There are a variety of rooms available at the resort, including many with an ocean view and beautiful balconies! There are also options with kitchenettes and dining areas, which are perfect for longer stays. The accommodations are all beautifully decorated with luxury amenities, it’s really such a comfortable resort where you will feel right at home. We stayed in an oceanfront room with a huge balcony, and our favourite thing about it was the beautiful view of Sooke Harbour! We highly recommend this resort if you’re looking for a unique getaway on Vancouver Island, it’s a perfect escape from Victoria and a great starting point to exploring Sooke. You won’t be disappointed! 

The Town of Sooke

Sooke is a quiet, seaside community best known for its amazing nature activities. You can go whale watching, kayaking, and hiking, and explore the amazing beaches in the area. There is such an abundance of things to do any time of year, even if you’re coming for a relaxing vacation we highly recommend venturing out at least a little bit! As a same-sex couple, we found Sooke to be extremely safe. The resort and all the businesses we visited in town were very kind and welcoming. We felt completely comfortable being out and open as a lesbian couple, and the entire community felt really inclusive. BC travel destinations tend to be some of the most LGBTQ+ friendly spots in Canada, and Vancouver Island is no exception. We love taking trips in our home province and we can’t recommend it enough to other queer travellers! 

For more information on Prestige Resorts and their different locations, you can visit their website here.

Disclosure: Prestige Resorts generously hosted us (and Theo) for our stay in Sooke. We had such a wonderful experience and are so excited to share them with our audience! 

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How to Get There 

The Empress is a gorgeous hotel that sits on Victoria’s inner harbour. If you’ve been to the city of Victoria before, then you’ve definitely seen it! To get to Vancouver Island, you can either take the ferry over from the mainland, or fly directly into Victoria Airport. You can also arrive by seaplane and land right in the harbour! The hotel is in a beautiful location, right on the water with plenty within walking distance. It’s in a great spot to explore the city, and experience everything Victoria has to offer! 

The Hotel

We’ve always loved Fairmont Hotels for a number of reasons. First, they have such beautiful properties and they are always in amazing locations. Second, they are proudly LGBTQ+ friendly and we always feel so safe and comfortable staying at a Fairmont as a lesbian couple. We actually partnered with the Fairmont Waterfront in Vancouver during Vancouver Pride earlier this year, and we were really impressed with everything the brand is doing to become more inclusive and supportive of our community! Lastly, our favourite thing about Fairmont is that they’re pet-friendly. It’s so fun to bring your pet along to a luxury hotel, and Theo got to come with us to the Empress! He was definitely treated like a VIP (very important pet), and we had such a fun stay with him. Many of the Fairmont Hotels including The Empress also have canine ambassadors, so we got to meet Winston, their resident hotel doggie!

The Rooms & Amenities

The Fairmont Empress has 464 rooms and suites, it’s a huge hotel! Many of the rooms have lovely views of the harbour, and all the accommodations are decorated beautifully. The hotel also has some great amenities including a health club, a heated indoor pool, the Willow Stream Spa, and of course the on-site restaurant and bar. You will have plenty to do during your stay without even leaving the property!

Q at The Empress

The main restaurant at the hotel is open daily for breakfast and dinner, offering Pacific Northwest cuisine and a menu focused on fresh, local ingredients. You can also arrange in-room dining and we highly recommend ordering breakfast to your room one morning! That way you can stay cozied up in your robe to start your day and have your meal delivered to you. Q Restaurant offers plenty of options for everyone and they can also accommodate dietary restrictions. We enjoyed an amazing plant-based breakfast each morning during our stay! 

Afternoon Tea at The Empress

The Fairmont Empress is probably best known for its famous Afternoon Tea. The hotel has been serving a traditional tea for 113 years and counting, and they offer various options including vegan, vegetarian, gluten-free, dairy-free, and nut-free. It is a full tiered tea service with fresh scones with house-made jam, pastries, finger sandwiches, and a rotating menu of ethically produced, looseleaf teas. It’s such a unique experience! Afternoon Tea at the Empress has become an important Victoria tradition, and people travel from all over the world to experience it. In the summer months, the Empress serves more Afternoon Tea than most hotels in London! The tea is served in the hotel’s elegant Lobby Lounge, on royal china that was a gift from her Majesty in 1939. It’s served from Wednesday through Sunday and we highly recommend booking in advance! This was absolutely one of the highlights of our stay, a proper vegan Afternoon Tea is hard to come by and being able to enjoy it at the Empress was so special. 

Lesbian Friendly 

The Fairmont brand prides itself on being LGBTQ+ friendly, and welcoming to all queer travellers. The Empress is definitely an inclusive space, and we felt completely free to be ourselves as a lesbian couple during our stay! We can certainly recommend this hotel to other LGBTQ+ travellers and same-sex couples for a great romantic stay in Victoria. Be sure to add it to your list! 

For more information on the Empress, you can visit their website here.

Disclosure: The Fairmont Empress generously hosted us (and Theo) for both accommodations and meals during our stay. We were able to experience so much of what this hotel has to offer and we had such a wonderful time. We’re so excited to share the Empress with our audience!

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The Maxwell Hotel is a part of the Staypineapple brand, and is one of 10 boutique hotels in 7 different cities across the US. They are all fun, funky, and stylish, and in great locations for urban adventure. At The Maxwell Hotel we fell in love with the colourful decor, friendly vibe, and incredibly comfortable bed! We were also very impressed with how friendly and attentive the staff was. Something else that really attracted us to the Staypineapple brand is that it’s very LGBTQ+ friendly and welcoming to same-sex couples and queer travellers. The location we stayed at even hosts gay speed dating events!

The Maxwell Hotel blew us away with how truly welcoming they are to four-legged travellers. Not only did our dog Theo get tons of attention when we checked in, he also received a doggy bed, food and water bowls, poop baggies, treats, and a personalized welcome sign in our room! All Staypineapple hotels are dog-friendly, have a reasonable pet fee, genuinely welcome dogs, and even let you leave your pup in your room if you need to (most hotels won’t allow that!). Theo got completely spoiled and was greeted warmly by the staff every time we came through the lobby. It feels like they are genuinely happy to have doggy guests which feels so nice when you’re travelling with your pet!

If you’re looking for a great dog-friendly hotel brand for your US travels, we highly recommend checking out Staypineapple. They have three other locations in Seattle, along with hotels in Portland, San Diego, San Francisco, Boston, Chicago, and NYC. We had such a great time at The Maxwell Hotel in Seattle, and are so happy that Theo got to come along for our trip. We can’t wait to check out the other Staypineapple locations!

For information on The Maxwell Hotel and other Stay Pineapple locations, you can visit their website here.

Has anyone else had a Stay Pineapple experience? Let us know in the comments!

Disclosure: This post is in collaboration with The Maxwell Hotel and Staypineapple. We are so happy to be working with them to share pet-friendly accommodation options with our audience! Staypineapple generously hosted us for a 2 night stay at The Maxwell Hotel, one of their Seattle hotel locations. Our dog Theo was incredibly spoiled and we had a truly wonderful experience. We highly recommend the Staypineapple brand as a great dog-friendly boutique hotel, and we can’t wait to check out their other locations across the US.

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Home Exchange

This article is a review of the house swapping website called HomeExchange. They are the largest home exchange network online, with hundreds of thousands of properties listed all over the world. We are writing solely based on OUR experience using them.

HomeExchange offers two different payment plans. You can sign up for free, and then choose a membership plan when you’re ready to book an exchange. You can either pay a low fee per-night, or an annual membership that allows for unlimited exchanges. If you sign up for an annual membership and do not complete an exchange during your first year, your second year is free! We started off with an annual membership, and recently renewed at no cost because we didn’t complete any exchanges during our first year.

When we signed up for HomeExchange, we listed our property in Niagara Falls, Ontario. We recently added our Vancouver property, and have been receiving a lot of interest for both simultaneous and non-simultaneous exchanges. HomeExchange has a ‘GuestPoints’ program, where you can earn points when you host and spend them when you stay as a guest. This offers a great, flexible option for travellers!

Our Experience

This past week we did our first swap through HomeExchange. We headed down to Portland, Oregon (one of our favourite US cities) for a 3 night visit! The hosts we connected with offered us a beautiful coach house in a great neighbourhood in East Portland. The suite was entirely private, had a full kitchen, a work space, a comfortable bedroom, and everything we needed for a short stay. We agreed on a non-simultaneous exchange, and we will be hosting the owners in our Vancouver property early next year. They were absolutely lovely people to deal with, and it reminded us why we love the community nature of house swaps. We had such an excellent experience during our first swap using HomeExchange!

Here are all of the things we loved:

-users on the website are active and respond quickly

-booking an exchange was easy and stress free

-there were plenty of properties to choose from in our desired location

Of course, because things went so smoothly during our exchange, we aren’t able to fully review the HomeExchange website’s customer service. We didn’t need to contact a customer service representative for any reason, because nothing went wrong! We have had bad experiences with another home swapping website, so we did look into all of HomeExchange’s policies before booking our exchange.

They state the following policies to their users:

-HomeExchange will handle the mediation between the host and the guest in case of incident or damage

-HomeExchange will compensate you in case of any unforeseen incident or damages as a host or guest

-Customer service is available by email or telephone Monday-Friday from 10am-6pm

-There is a live chat platform where ambassador members can answer questions

-In case of emergency, personalized assistance is available by email and phone 24/7

We are confident that the HomeExchange customer service team is far superior to that of smaller home swapping websites. They appear to have systems in place for dealing with problem guests, incidents, and emergencies, and their platform also has a great review system. We feel good knowing that we would be protected as hosts in the case of a bad experience, and that the website would work to mediate and compensate us (unlike Love Home Swap).

We absolutely recommend HomeExchange as an excellent house swapping website. From what we have experienced, they are the best option out there! Being the largest network, they have far more properties available to choose from compared to other websites. They also have excellent policies in place, and a dedicated customer service team in case problems arise. Click here to join the community!

Have you ever tried a home exchange? Let us know how you liked it in the comments below!

Disclosure: Please note that some of the links in this blog post may be affiliate links. This means that at no additional cost to you, we could make a small commission through your purchase. We only recommend products and services that we truly believe in, and the income generated goes toward creating more content on this website for you to enjoy for free.

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Love Home Swap

This article is a review of the home exchange website called Love Home Swap. Founded in 2009, Love Home Swap is one of the bigger home sharing websites out there. We are writing solely based on OUR experience using them.

Love Home Swap offers a free 14 day trial membership, as well as 3 tiers of paid memberships. The paid memberships offer different benefits, and the monthly fees are billed annually. We started off with a 14 day trial and then started a paid platinum membership.

When we signed up for Love Home Swap, we listed our property in Niagara Falls, Ontario. We immediately had quite a bit of interest for non-simultaneous exchanges, also known as “points swaps”. This is offered as a more flexible option, meaning that you earn points when someone comes to stay in your home, and you can use the points on a future trip. In theory, we could host guests at our house in Niagara Falls, earn points, and then use those points to book a stay at a destination of our choice.

Our Experience

We accepted our first exchange, and hosted guests over a 5 day period during the summertime. We offered them a stay in our main house, while we had Airbnb guests downstairs during the duration of the exchange. We expected respectful guests, since in the past we have found home exchangers to be great people! If someone is trusting others with their home, they tend to be very respectful of someone else’s space. It’s one of the reasons why we love the community nature of home exchanges. Unfortunately, we had a terrible experience with our first Love Home Swap home exchangers.

Here is what we had to deal with:

-noise complaints from our Airbnb guests (who we ended up refunding for the inconvenience)

-the biggest mess we have ever had guests leave (we needed to pay our cleaner extra)

-minor damage to our home and items that needed replacing

-numerous house rules that were broken including additional un-authorized guests and pets

-all of our doors left unlocked when the guests departed

While this AWFUL experience came as a surprise, we do understand that a certain level of risk comes along with allowing people into your home. However, we have been Airbnb hosts and home exchangers for many years, and have never experienced such an unfortunate situation. Our only source of comfort, was the assumption that the Love Home Swap customer service representatives would help us to rectify the situation.

Unfortunately, upon contacting the website with our concerns we were told that:

-they have no policy for problem guests

-they have no resolution centre to help rectify issues

-they want to believe that this was an “isolated incident”

-they do not allow home exchange hosts to review guests

-this guest would continue to be able to book home exchanges without other hosts knowing about the incident

-we could not receive any compensation for the trouble/damages unless we requested it from the guest directly

The Love Home Swap customer service representative encouraged us to “keep communication open” with the guest, and told us that they would be willing to help mediate “if they were being unresponsive”. They offered to make a note on their account for monitoring purposes, but indicated no consequences for the guest whatsoever. We were extremely disappointed with the way the situation was handled, and shocked that Love Home Swap didn’t have any policies in place for issues such as this.

Other Things to Note

Naturally, we chose to cancel our membership after this happened and try a different home exchange website with better policies! Aside from our terrible experience with the problem guest, we also had some other issues with Love Home Swap that we wanted to mention:

-the benefits offered through the platinum membership were difficult to access, and were only received after emailing Love Home Swap to inquire about them

-many users were inactive and wouldn’t respond to inquiries, making it difficult to book exchanges or use the points we accumulated

-memberships cannot be cancelled immediately by the user, and cancellations can only be requested by emailing or calling Love Home Swap

-Love Home Swap will not cancel a membership immediately and instead will attempt to keep you in the program (we had to sternly ask 3 times before they agreed to cancel our membership)

In short, we do NOT recommend Love Home Swap as a home exchange website. There are better options out there! We have been much happier with our experience so far on HomeExchange.com It’s the largest home exchange network online, and there are hundreds of thousands of properties listed all over the world. We are doing our first exchange this week, so stay tuned for our review!

Have you ever tried a home exchange? Let us know your experience in the comments below!

Disclosure: Please note that some of the links in this blog post may be affiliate links. This means that at no additional cost to you, we could make a small commission through your purchase. We only recommend products and services that we truly believe in, and the income generated goes toward creating more content on this website for you to enjoy for free.

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Here are our top 5 Tips for smart travel accommodations:

1. Stay With Friends & Family

This one is easy! If you’re lucky enough to have friends or family in other parts of the world, go visit them! Use it as a jumping off point for a bigger trip, or make a trip out of their destination. We often stay with friends and family members that live in other cities or countries, and we love the quality time we get to spend with them. We are fortunate to have these people spread out all over the world, and it’s a great excuse to travel to see them. These trips are a fun way to visit with loved ones and also experience a new place from a local’s perspective. It can also save you a lot of money on the cost of accommodations! We like to repay our generous hosts by cooking them delicious meals, tidying up around their place, and treating them when we go out. We find this to be the perfect way to be smart about accommodation costs. Staying with family and friends who are supportive of you no matter how you identify, can also take away some of the potential discomfort you may feel staying in other accommodations. It’s also just a really nice way to spend time with the wonderful people in our lives!

2. Home Exchange

Home exchanges have become very popular as a smart means of accommodations when travelling, and considering them may even inspire you to travel somewhere that you’d never thought about going. There are plenty of trusted house swapping sites online, and we’ve used several of them. When we first tried home exchanging a few years ago, we preferred to use a specifically LGBTQ+ website called Home Around the World. We did both simultaneous and non-simultaneous exchanges with other travellers, and it was an amazing way to save on our accommodation costs. This site was also great for ensuring that you are exchanging with people who are either members of the LGBTQ+ community, or allies. While we were living in Vancouver full time, we did a direct swap with a gay male couple down in San Francisco. They came to BC and stayed in our Gastown condo, and we spent a week in their beautiful San Fran townhouse. We both gave each other tips and advice on how to get the most out of our stays, and of course our homes were both well respected. We also did non-simultaneous exchanges with people living in LA, Toronto, and NYC.

More recently we’ve tried out two other websites, as Home Around the World users aren’t as active as they used to be, due to how popular and inclusive other websites have become. The biggest home sharing website around (and the one we now recommend) is HomeExchange.com as they have the most users worldwide! Properties can be listed as specifically LGBTQ+ friendly, and you can even filter your search to find these properties. It’s our first year on the site, and we have yet to do an exchange, but we’ve already had requests from a lot of people with amazing properties all over the world. Staying in someone’s home is a great way to get a local’s perspective when you’re in a new location. It also gives you all the comforts you’re used to, and most of these houses will have full kitchens, and laundry available for use during your stay.

We highly recommend home exchanges, but of course you need a home that you’re able to offer up in order to use this method!

3. Couch Surfing

We’ve only tried couch surfing once, and while it’s not our ‘go-to’ style of travelling, it’s popular with a lot of travellers. There is a website called couchsurfing.com that matches travellers in need of accommodations with locals who have extra space (most of the time, a spare bedroom) and are interested in meeting people from around the world. This can be a good option for solo travellers, or anyone who likes to socialize and meet new people. This isn’t the best option if you like to keep to yourself and have your own space, as you are definitely expected to spend time visiting and being social! There is a wide range in the type of accommodations hosts are able to provide, but in some cases, you will be able to find a private room with use of the kitchen and laundry. In these cases, a couch surfing stay can be quite comfortable, and since no money is exchanged, it’s a very smart option in terms of affordability.

When we used this website, we stayed with a woman who was an active member of the LGBTQ+ community, and we had a good experience. We spent time talking with her about the queer magazine she wrote for, and discussed different LGBTQ+ events in the area. Just like when we stay with friends and family, we made a point to be very respectful of her home, and we brought her a gift when we arrived to thank her for having us as guests.

We definitely recommend couch surfing, and the only reason we haven’t continued using it is because we generally like to have our own space to work remotely, and we frequently travel with our little pup!

Couch surfing as an LGBTQ+ person can obviously add an additional layer of safety concerns, so it’s important that you feel safe with your host. From our experience, some hosts on the website will list themselves as being members of the community or open to hosting LGBTQ+ travellers. If they have that information listed on their profile, you’re able to search the ‘keywords’ for inclusive hosts. As always, do your research and listen to your instincts. There are other couch surfing platforms outside of this website as well, some of which are geared more toward LGBTQ+ travellers. Facebook groups, and online travel forums are a great place to start if this is your style.

4. House Sitting

We haven’t tried house sitting yet, but it’s become a very popular way for travellers to find accommodations around the world! There are always people who are looking for a responsible person or couple to care for their home while they are away. Sometimes you would be expected to water plants, check the mail, or even care for a pet, and in return you would stay in the home free of cost. We recently signed up for one of the biggest house sitting websites called TrustedHouseSitters.com which is mostly geared toward pet-friendly people! We see several new house sitting opportunities posted every day that you can submit to, and we plan on using this method more in the future. You definitely need to be flexible with your dates, and it helps if you’re even flexible with your destinations. When you sign up, you are expected to create a thorough profile, so you can introduce yourself to homeowners looking for a sitter. We chose to be very open about the fact that we’re a same sex couple in our profile, because we would only want to house sit for someone who is inclusive of our community.

Typically, the people who have house sitters take care of their homes take great pride in their properties. The homes are generally very well kept and have all the comforts you would need during your travels!

5. Airbnb

Our last option and definitely the one we use most often, is Airbnb. There are other vacation rental sites which use the same home sharing principle, but we have been using Airbnb exclusively for close to 7 years and can only speak to it specifically. Of course, of the five options, this is the only one that isn’t free of cost, but if you are going to spend money on travel accommodations, Airbnb is a great way to do it. It’s far more affordable than a hotel, and you get so much more for your money! Rather than staying in a small room with no kitchen and having to go out for all of your meals, you can have an entire apartment or a whole house to yourself. Because we travel full time and work remotely, it’s important to us to have a proper work space and a sense of home. We love to grocery shop and cook healthy meals at our accommodations, and having a real kitchen is definitely worth it for us. We also travel quite often with our small dog, and Airbnb makes it easy to find pet-friendly accommodations so our pup can feel at home too. If you do spend money on your travel accommodations, we definitely think Airbnb is a great way to go. If you’ve never used it, you can use our code to get a $45 credit toward your first stay by clicking here. While searching for the perfect place, keep an eye out for properties that have a weekly or monthly discount. For longer stays, you can end up saving a lot of money!

As a lesbian couple, we feel safe booking accommodations through Airbnb because they are a very inclusive platform. Hosts on the website must agree that they will not discriminate against any guests based on race, sexual orientation, or for any other reason. If there is a discrimination incident, the Airbnb resolution centre will mediate the situation, and they do not tolerate any anti LGBTQ+ behaviour. Of course we still recommend reading reviews before booking, and as always do your own research to ensure your safety while travelling.

*BONUS TIP*

While hotels are generally your most expensive option for accommodations, sometimes they do make the most sense when travelling! We will often book a hotel for single night stays while on a road trip, or when we want to treat ourselves with a fancy night for a special occasion. Sometimes we will stay in a boutique hotel rather than an Airbnb if we’re travelling abroad and would feel safer doing so. Hotels generally have more security than an apartment or home, and we’ve travelled to some destinations where the Airbnb accommodations didn’t provide enough security to make us feel comfortable and safe.

When we do book hotels we use Hotels.com because they have great rates, a lot of sales, and a good loyalty program. For every ten nights you stay, you get a free night for the average value of the ten nights you purchased. We’ve saved up our free nights to use on a beautiful villa in Bali, and an upscale hotel in downtown Vancouver to celebrate our wedding anniversary. You can use your free nights on many hotels around the world, and if the room you want costs more than your free night, you can redeem it and pay the difference. Something to keep in mind with this website, is that when you redeem any sale coupons, the night will not count towards your ten stays. You will need to determine if the coupon discount is worth it, or if it’s better to have your stay contribute to your free nights. Hotels.com also does price matching, so if you find a lower price on another website or on their own website after you’ve booked your reservation, they will always match the lowest price. We recently saved $200 on a reservation in Mexico, because the price had been lowered closer to our travel dates.

Happy travelling! Let us know if you have any other great tips for being smart with your travel accommodations!

Disclosure: Please note that some of the links in this blog post are affiliate links. This means that at no additional cost to you, we could make a small commission through your purchase. We only recommend products and services that we truly believe in, and the income generated goes toward creating more content on this website for you to enjoy for free.

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