At $48 during peak season, it’s one of North America’s most expensive campsites. But show up at the Bella Pacifica campground between June and late September (and all long weekends year-round) without a reservation made months in advance and chances are you’ll be paying three times that for a musty motel room.

There’s a reason that the 181 spots are so popular with the RV crowd, car campers and foreign backpackers. A dearth of affordable accommodation in tiny Tofino (three kilometres north) when the summer hordes descend aside, it’s Bella Pacifica’s beachfront location on sweeping Mackenzie Bay that makes first-timer jaws drop, especially during clear evenings, when campfire, barbecue and various other smoke rises towards the violet sky and dinnertime chatter is muffled by the lush canopy of the rainforest. The site’s amenities are plentiful as well—from the individual electrical and water hookups to the communal bathrooms, showers and laundry—and explain why visitors return year after year, if only to snag the prized beachfront lots (#1-18) that they missed out on in a prior visit.

Rates begin at $23 in low season.