In a candid interview, Pamela Anderson shares the place she returned to so she could slow down, reconnect, and feel like herself again.
“I think Pamela Anderson lives around here.”
It wasn’t the first thing I’d expected to hear during a ceremony to welcome Holland America Line’s Noordam to her first-ever port call at Nanaimo, British Columbia. And then I got more of the scoop from an acquaintance.
Pamela Anderson had left Hollywood and moved back to Ladysmith, just south of Nanaimo, where she was from originally, and they’d once sat across from her on a Helijet flight to the island from Vancouver.
It seems almost as though Anderson was destined to be in the spotlight. Her very birth drew attention—born on July 1, 1967, exactly the centennial of Canada’s confederation, so she was hailed as the “Centennial Baby.” Discovered in a Labatt’s t-shirt at a Vancouver football game, a modeling career quickly took her to Los Angeles, then transitioned to acting on series like Home Improvement and Baywatch, on Broadway in the musical Chicago, and in films such as Barb Wire and The Last Showgirl.
Sometime after the cruise, I received an e-mail that Anderson was working with Destination Canada on a promotion designed to send travelers on a “reset” in Canada.
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“After years in the spotlight,” read the announcement, “Pamela Anderson returned to her hometown of Ladysmith on Vancouver Island, reconnecting with her roots and embracing a quieter, more grounded way of living. In stepping back from constant reinvention, she found value in presence, simplicity, and a deeper connection to place. Her story is personal, but it reflects something many visitors discover in Canada: a place that supports a return to what feels authentic, where reconnection comes not from becoming someone new, but from remembering who you already are.”
A look on Anderson’s Instagram suggests she’s found a good balance between gardening at home in Ladysmith and glammy worldwide red-carpet affairs promoting her films. But I was curious about what had drawn her back to Ladysmith (where she returned to live fulltime in 2019), and how travelers could reach that same “quieter, more grounded way of living”—at least during a visit.
Pamela Anderson’s Fond Memories of Vancouver Island
Fodor’s recently caught up with Anderson to learn more about what she might recommend for travelers to Canada—or travelers in general.
“I still come home to Vancouver Island to breathe,” she say. “It’s snow-capped mountains, the rocky beaches full of life—it’s ‘normal’ to me—unpretentious and free.”
One of Anderson’s most treasured locales is in her own hometown of Ladysmith, where she loves strolling down First Avenue, “especially during the Festival of Lights over the winter holidays,” she shares.
“It’s a childhood memory,” she says. “Being in the parade or on a float with friends.” Another of her childhood memories is the scent of crabapple blossoms and the flavor of their fruit, which she characterizes as “distinct.”
Ladysmith’s First Avenue certainly is picturesque, and it was named the Best Street in Canada by the Canadian Institute of Planners.
Perhaps as a harbinger of later “beachy” roles, she continues, “I love my hometown’s small but charming Transfer Beach, where I took swimming lessons in the ocean—I was a proud ‘otter.’” Proof, perhaps, that Anderson comes from tough stock—water temperatures off Transfer Beach reach a summer peak of around 66 degrees (a competition swimming pool is typically heated to around 80 degrees).
Tofino, on the Pacific Coast of the island, known for its ocean storms and picturesque, rocky bays, is “the surf spot we all wanted to go to,” she says, and she also enjoyed “Coombs, where the goats graze on the rooftops of them market.” Coombs is just north of Nanaimo on the way to Tofino, where visitors in all seasons flock to the oceanfront Wickaninnish Inn for ocean vistas and storm watching.
She also recalls Cathedral Grove for its “beautiful huge trees,” reminding would-be visitors that “Vancouver Island is a rainforest/”
She rounds out her recommendations with Butchart Gardens “one of my favorite places to get lost in,” and a stop into Victoria’s Fairmont Empress Hotel for high tea. I’ll gladly second that—the hotel has been serving their afternoon tea since 1908, and the menu includes delights like a truffled mushroom quiche, English cucumber sandwich, and lovely fresh-baked scones with clotted cream, strawberry preserves, and lemon curd. Teapots even come with a timer so they know how long to let their tea steep in the pot. For a truly luxurious experience, you can do as I did and amp up the beverage line-up with a gin and tonic with Empress 1908 Gin, which was inspired by the hotel’s afternoon tea.
A spokesperson for PETA, Anderson herself follows a vegan lifestyle. To supplement what she harvests from her own garden, she’s a fan of “wild asparagus and mushrooms foraged by experts—you can always find a guide.”
Wandering around the island, it’s easy to understand what would have drawn Anderson home. The neatly-tended gardens, the quiet hillside with vistas tracing lush temperate rainforest to rocky, driftwood-strewn beaches fronting the fragrant Salish Sea—it’s the kind of place suspended in a calm quiet that bores restless youths hungry to see the world, and centers weary adults who have seen more than enough of it.
Pamela Anderson’s Travel Tips
When it comes to self-care on the go, Anderson prefers products from Sonsie, the skincare brand she co-founded in 2021. “It’s the best by far,” she says. “I have honed it so I have everything I need on travel days for hydration and healthy skin.” The brand is naturally vegan and cruelty-free.
When heading abroad from Canada, she might be bound for the south of France, particularly St.-Tropez, which she likes for the similarities to her home on Vancouver Island—with some caveats. “It’s a similar laid-back garden lifestyle, it’s fancier I guess” she says, also noting that “the Mediterranean has so many people in its high season.”
Wherever her travels take her, she’s still firm about the roots she’s chosen to return to. “I can appreciate [it] all much more now from a newer, seasoned perspective,” she says, pointing out that what makes both Vancouver Island and the rest of Canada such a distinctive, welcoming place for visitors are Canadians themselves: “The people are innately kind, and you feel safe here.”