Travel writer Bill Arnott has enjoyed visiting the Parksville/Qualicum Beach area so much he and his wife decided to make Qualicum Beach their part-time home. Arnott is well-known for his overseas travel saga Gone Viking, as well as A Season on Vancouver Island — a B.C. best-seller and now his most recent release A Festive Season on Vancouver Island. He and his wife, Deb, spent three months of “concentrated travel” up and down the Island, taking in the holiday sights, talking to locals and researching outside of the usual summer holiday peak season. “I was really trying to see and do as much as possible in the car and on foot, from November, right through the new year,” said Arnott, who divides his time between Vancouver and the Island. While checking out festive lights, concerts, plays and museums, he realized there is at least one commonality with every person he met, regardless of their religion – that the festive season brings everyone together. “Most folks are looking for this very same thing, especially through the festive season – gathering up loved ones past and present, celebrating a sense of abundance and gratitude and they’re just being together with the folks that we care about,” Arnott said. Whether people associated the season with their faith, or came at it from a secular point of view, many of the perspectives were the same: time with loved ones, lights, songs and sharing a meal. “Peacefulness” is one word that comes to mind when visiting the Island in the last few months of the year, Arnott said. Sometimes he would be the only person visiting a museum or find himself walking along the beach at low tide, with fewer people out walking their dogs or strolling the boardwalk at Parksville beach. “There’s a little bit more activity in nature because there’s a little bit fewer tourists, so it seems like the eagle and seal activity is a little more vibrant,” he added, and said he met birders who had spotted dozens of eagles hunting at spots such as the mouth of French Creek. Other times he would find himself at a bustling craft fair or the farmers’ market. “There’s a celebratory feel. You see the different things in the shops, in the decorations.” One highlight was Moonlight Madness in Qualicum Beach, where he and his wife were among thousands who turned out last year for carolling, evening downtown shopping and cocoa. A Festive Season combines Arnott’s travel narrative with the visual art of his painted photos – digitally stylized for the book. “What I love about it is I feel that it offers a much more engaging, or a richer, sensory engagement,” he said. A Festive Season completes a travel memoir trilogy that also includes A Season on Vancouver Island and A Season in the Okanagan and covers the different seasons. “One of the things I was communicating is the festive season – I feel isn’t really necessarily tied to a calendar. “It can be as much a state of mind as anything.” A Festive Season was released on Nov. 4 through Rocky Mountain Books [https://rmbooks.com/] and is available at books shops in the mid-Island area, including Fireside Books in Parksville and Bellflower Bookshop in Qualicum Beach. RELATED: B.C. travel writer visits Parksville Qualicum Beach for new book [https://pqbnews.com/2022/09/07/b-c-travel-writer-visits-parksville-qualicum-beach-for-new-book/] RELATED: Qualicum Beach couple publishes 1st book of photography [https://pqbnews.com/2025/07/20/qualicum-beach-couple-publishes-1st-book-of-photography/]
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