Steve Eckert
Founder of Vancouver Island Bucket List, based in Sooke. If it’s on this site, I’ve been there, and the photos are mine.
Why I Built VIBL
I moved to Sooke, British Columbia in 2021 with my wife Jen and our daughter. What started as a personal project (a wall map covered in pins marking every place we’d explored) turned into the planning resource I wished existed when we first arrived.
When we first landed on the island, I hit the same wall every new resident and visitor hits: the information was scattered across five different websites, none of them agreed on trail conditions, and the places that were documented were documented badly, with no parking information, no sense of difficulty, and no way to tell whether a family could actually do it.
So I started documenting everything myself, not as a blogger or influencer, but as someone who genuinely needed a single, reliable place to plan a day out with the family.
That documentation became Vancouver Island Bucket List: a locally researched, regularly updated guide covering 200+ experiences across Vancouver Island, from well-known landmarks to places most travel sites miss entirely.
What I promote and what I don't
Vancouver Island Bucket List covers public parks, public beaches, marked trails, and locally owned businesses. I try to send people to places that can handle the traffic. Not every spot has a big parking lot, but I am not going to send forty cars to a gravel shoulder and ruin the spot for the people who live on that road.
I point people at independent operators rather than chains, and I would rather connect you with a local business directly than send you through a booking engine that takes its cut off the island. Right now a lot of bookings still go through those engines, but the goal is to work with businesses one on one as the site grows.
There are a lot of places to visit on this island, not just the popular ones. Stay on the marked trails, pack in, pack out. The goal is to help people find the right day out for them, and to respect what we have.
How places get on this site
I go there first. Every experience page comes from a visit, and the photographs are mine, not stock and not AI.
What goes on the page is the practical stuff: where to park, how far it is, how hard it is, what it is like in February. Not adjectives.
Pages get reviewed and updated, but things change fast and I won’t always catch it right away. If you spot something out of date, let me know. Someone who was just there knows more than I do sitting at my desk.
If I have not been somewhere, I say so, or it does not go up until I have.
Recognition off this site
Sooke Region Tourism Association, board member 2023-2026. President for one term (2024-2026), then Vice President from March to August 2026. I stepped down so that Vancouver Island Bucket List could work with the association under contract. SRTA board listing
Sooke Region Chamber of Commerce, board member 2023-2025. 2023 Chamber of Commerce Board
Get in touch
Email me at steven@vibl.ca or connect on LinkedIn.
I want to hear from you if a place on the site has changed, if there is somewhere you think I should check out, or if you are a local business that wants to work together.