Tofino, British Columbia · Designed Glamping · Cox Bay South
Surf Grove Campground
Pacific Sands' modern sister — heated glamping cabins at Cox Bay's south end, beach access included.
Pacific Sands' modern sister — heated glamping cabins at Cox Bay's south end, beach access included.
"Pacific Sands' modern sister — designed glamping cabins at Cox Bay's south end, beach access included."
Surf Grove is what happens when a fifty-year-old family resort decides to do glamping properly. Opened by the same McDiarmid family that has run Pacific Sands Beach Resort since 1972, Surf Grove sits at the southern end of Cox Bay on the same Pacific Rim Highway address — and inherits the operational DNA that has kept Pacific Sands at the top of Tofino's family-resort rankings for half a century. The difference is the price-point. Where the resort starts at four figures for a Beach House, Surf Grove cabins begin at CAD $250 a night and top out around $500 for the larger units, which is the kind of maths that turns a long-weekend whim into a week.
The accommodation mix runs from designed glamping cabins to RV pads to walk-in tent sites. The cabins are the headline: heated, with real beds (not airbeds, not sleeping platforms — actual beds with linen), proper insulation, and the kind of architectural restraint that makes them sit in the cedars rather than fight them. They work April through October because of the heat, which is the practical answer to "can we shoulder-season this." A wet October surf trip becomes plausible. A May family long-weekend becomes plausible. The campground proper — RV hook-ups and tent pitches — is for travellers who already own the gear and want the address without the cabin upcharge.
The location is the south end of Cox Bay, which is geographically meaningful. Pacific Sands sits at the north end where the resort architecture clusters; Surf Grove pushes further south, closer to Pettinger Point and the trailhead for Schooner Cove. That places guests on the quieter half of the bay, with a shorter walk to one of Tofino's best-loved short hikes and the same long crescent of surf as the Wickaninnish guests pay quadruple for. Beach access is direct and included — no shuttle, no day-pass theatre. You walk through the property, across the dunes, onto the sand.
The Pacific Sands connection is the operational reassurance. Surf Grove guests are not staying at the resort, but the resort is a five-minute walk up the highway, and the Surf Sister surf school, the rotating food trucks, and the resort's reception team are all available to anyone who wants them. The right way to think about it is this: Surf Grove gives you the address and the cabin; Pacific Sands gives you the amenity layer if and when you want it. For a surfer who is going to be in a wetsuit by 8am and out of it for dinner, that is more than enough hotel.
Why this is the right-sized stay for a particular kind of Tofino traveller comes down to spending priorities. If your trip is built around surf lessons, hikes, and beach time, the cabin is for sleeping — and a $250 cabin sleeps you exactly as well as a $1,400 lodge suite. The money saved is money that goes into a five-day Surf Sister course, a kayak rental at Tofino Resort + Marina, a longer stay, or a return trip in October. Surf Grove is the answer for travellers who would rather spend their budget on what they came to do than on the room they came to sleep in.
Book a cabin in shoulder season — May or late September — and the south end of Cox Bay clears out almost entirely. Heated, real-bed comfort after a long surf, the Schooner Cove trailhead five minutes from your door, and a price-point that lets a solo traveller stretch the trip from three nights to seven. No restaurant pressure, no resort lobby small talk. Just the bay.
For families who want the Cox Bay address at sub-resort pricing, the larger cabins sleep four comfortably with the Pacific Sands amenity layer (Surf Sister lessons, the food trucks, the reception team) a five-minute walk away. Kids get the dunes and the beach; parents get the maths that says a week here costs less than three nights at the lodge across the bay.
Cabin, cedars, ocean within earshot, no television by default. The wellness pitch at Surf Grove is structural rather than scheduled — long beach walks, the Schooner Cove trail, surf as movement therapy, sleep that the Pacific helps along. Pair it with a five-day Surf Sister course and a thermos of something warm. The pricing makes a longer stay possible, and a longer stay is what wellness actually requires.
Rates checked May 2026. Price may vary by date.
Surf Grove is Pacific Sands' designed-glamping sister at the south end of the bay — heated cabins, direct beach access, the same Pacific shoreline.
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