Canada · British Columbia · Nanaimo
Departure Bay, Nanaimo — Area Guide & Where to Stay
Departure Bay is a bay and neighbourhood in central Nanaimo, on the east coast of Vancouver Island in British Columbia.
About Departure Bay
Where to stay in Departure Bay
The right area depends on your trip — here's what each neighbourhood is best for.
Rooms around Departure Bay put the water at the end of the street, and the pull of the place is that shoreline rather than any concentration of shops, so the choice comes down to how close to the bay a traveller wants to wake. Central Nanaimo is minutes away. The rest of the City of Nanaimo carries the wider range of beds, and anyone crossing to or from the east coast of Vancouver Island will find the bay a practical place to start the day.
About Departure Bay
What are the main landmarks in Departure Bay?
No monument stands over this neighbourhood. What Departure Bay has instead is the water itself, a bay on the east coast of Vancouver Island that gave the surrounding neighbourhood its name and still sets the shape of the streets around it. Central Nanaimo lies just inland.
Beyond that, the City of Nanaimo holds whatever a visitor might want in the way of built attractions, and the bay remains the reason to be out here at all.
What is the history of Departure Bay?
Departure Bay was its own settlement before it was a neighbourhood, a community on the east coast of Vancouver Island that took its name from the water it sat beside. That changed in the 1970s. Amalgamation folded it into the City of Nanaimo, and the name survived the transfer, staying attached both to the bay and to the streets that ring it in central Nanaimo.
Where is Departure Bay?
The water cuts into central Nanaimo here, opening off the east coast of Vancouver Island, with the neighbourhood wrapped around its shore.
Good for
Updated August 2026