Where adventure meets paradise…
The journey to Naramata begins with sinuous curves in the road, warm sunshine, and a growing sense of well-being as you leave behind city life and delve into the heart of wine country. You leisurely make your way along the Naramata Bench, meander through vineyards and orchards, pass wineries and charming bed and breakfasts, all the while bathed in sun and overlooking shimmering Okanagan Lake.
Adventuring in Naramata is easy with hundreds of trails, beaches and parks to explore and experience the Okanagan scenery. Activities are endless from biking, hiking, water sports, wildlife viewing, and more.
1. Sip
The Naramata Bench is an critically acclaimed winemaking area in British Columbia; known for its top-quality wines that regularly win national and international awards. With 43 wineries and two distilleries within 14 kilometres, you’ll find plenty of terroir to swirl, sip and savour your way through. The Naramata Bench is home to some of BC’s best known wineries, each in a beautiful setting and offering a selection of distinctive Naramata Bench wines.
2. Slide
Hidden up Naramata Creek there is a waterfall that nature has carved out to create its own chutes and pools suitable for sliding. Follow Arawana, an old forest service road, to a trail to discover these rock slides to provide some cool fun on a hot Okanagan summer’s day.
3. Ride
Naramata offers hundreds of mountain biking trails surrounded by beautiful rocky bluffs, ponderosa pine trees and scenic views of Okanagan Lake. The Kettle Valley Rail (KVR) Trail is the most popular ride due to its user-friendly 2.2% grade, picturesque views and the dozens of wineries along the way. The KVR Trail is the longest rail trail network in British Columbia—once a comprehensive railroad system, the decommissioned tracks are now home to an extensive recreational trail. The Three Blind Mice area overlooks Okanagan Lake to the west, and is mainly composed of beautiful ponderosa pine, rock bluffs, and grasslands. Campbell Mountain is a great place to learn to mountain bike.
4. Lake
On a hot day, the beach is always the place to be! No Okanagan vacation is complete without a few hours spent paddling, fishing, floating, splashing, wading, or basking on the beach. Naramata’s Manitou Park and Beach is a popular destination for locals and visitors alike. The park offers a white sand beach with plenty of shady trees right near the water. Three Mile Beach features three beaches – one for swimming, one for day moorage boating, and on the other side of the parking lot there is a dog beach. Paddling on a paddleboard or kayak is a wonderful way to spend a day exploring the many beaches surrounding Naramata
5. Wellness, Peace & History
A century ago, Naramata became a cultural hub thanks to J.M. and Eliza Robinson’s sophisticated tastes, legendary parties, and proclivity for the supernatural. Nope, not a typo. Back then, people from across the Okanagan travelled by boat to enjoy concerts, plays, operas, regattas, and quite a few séances.
Another distinctive trait of the town’s culture is that Naramata is one of only four Canadian towns to receive the Cittaslow designation. Founded in Italy and inspired by the Slow Food movement, the goals of the Cittaslow organization include improving the quality of life in towns by slowing down its overall pace, especially in a city’s use of spaces and the flow of life and traffic through them. The Naramata Slow Community Group was formed to uphold and celebrate the goals of Cittaslow International in Naramata.