A boardwalk loop leaves the Paradise Meadows parking lot at the top of the Strathcona Parkway and runs 4.2 km through subalpine meadows in about an hour and a half. Keep walking past the loop and it opens onto Lake Helen MacKenzie and Battleship Lake in the granite beyond. The catch for a van is that no Strathcona day-use area allows camping, so you sleep down the hill and drive up for the day.
To spend a night on the plateau itself, you go on foot. The tent pads at Kwai and Circlet lakes are hike-in, out past Helen MacKenzie on the longer loops, and fires up there are limited to Strathcona's steel rings, with none allowed in the backcountry. On a clear day the Comox Glacier and the granite peaks fill the skyline across the plateau.
The nights a van can actually drive to inside the park are on the far side, at Buttle Lake and Ralph River off Highway 28, where the sites sit under mountain walls along a long reservoir. The water is cold but swims well off the campground beach, though afternoon wind can build on the lake. The sites are unserviced, with no hookups or dump station in the park, so a bigger rig that wants power and more room to sleep fits the trip better as a full-size RV, which the Courtenay RV page covers.
Miracle Beach on the Strait of Georgia
Miracle Beach is the coast overnight, 22 km north of Courtenay off Highway 19A at exit 144 and then Miracle Beach Drive. At low tide the sand flats and tide pools open up in front of forested campsites set back under second-growth, with hot showers and a picnic area on the water. It is the reservable park most people aim for, and the sites are unserviced with a sani-station, so it works for a van without hookups. Frontcountry runs 48 dollars a party per night in peak season as of August 2026, with out-of-province renters paying a 20 dollar non-resident fee on top. If it is full, Saratoga Beach is right next door.
Closer to town, Kitty Coleman is a rocky oceanfront under old-growth firs just northwest of Courtenay. It is a Class C site on first-come, first-served through a caretaker rather than online, which makes it the fallback when the reservable parks fill on a summer weekend. Comox is about 5 km east, and the plateau stays the Courtenay trip, while Comox's own Class C beaches like Kin Beach are on the Comox campervan page.
A ferry day to Hornby and Denman
For a ferry day, two short crossings from Buckley Bay reach Denman Island and then Hornby, where Tribune Bay opens almost a kilometre of fine white sand into the warm Strait. Fillongley on Denman keeps ten oceanfront sites that fill early through July and August, and Tribune Bay prohibits beach and campfires year-round. Point the van south instead and Rathtrevor and the Parksville and Qualicum beaches are the overnight, which the Parksville campervan page covers.