A ferry announcement about whales comes over the tannoy and suddenly the cafeteria empties, the crew step away from their tasks, and everyone presses to the windows. That shared pause is the heartbeat of slow travel, and it’s why Adventurer Phoebe Smith takes you onboard BC Ferries’ “Milk Run” from Vancouver Island up through Canada’s Inside Passage. This isn’t a floating resort. It’s a working supply route that carries food, freight and locals between remote Indigenous coastal communities and, for travellers, it’s one of the most affordable ways to see humpbacks, orcas, sea lions and wild, rain-soaked shorelines.

Also coming up:

• Author of All My Wild Mothers and new book The Apothecary by the Sea: A Year in an Orkney Garden and self-confessed wild woman Victoria 'Vik' Bennett
• Travel Hack: how to travel on a budget without being a backpacker
• Top 10 of the best ferry rides in the world
• Meet the woman who's been making an audio record of women adventurers – of all ages, shapes and sizes – with her Tough Girl Podcast for the past 10 years, Sarah Williams
• Gear chat: what to pack for a scenic ferry ride
• Isobel Gunn – who in 1806 passed herself off as a man and inadvertantly becoming the first European woman to travel to Rupert's Land, now part of Western Canada – is our Wander Woman of the Month.

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Contact Wander Woman

www.Phoebe-Smith.com; @PhoebeRSmith