Sips to sourdough: The ideal way to spend a few days in the Okanagan

I’m not someone who usually wants a holiday to involve a lot of time behind the wheel. But some places make the case for taking the scenic route, and the Okanagan does it pretty convincingly.

So when Mazda invited me to explore the area with Daily Hive, it was an easy yes.

Half the fun of visiting the Okanagan is getting from place to place. The roads wind through rolling hills, vineyards, lakeside scenery, countless fruit stands, quirky shops, and roadside attractions, making them an ideal place to spend some time behind the wheel.

I got to test out the 2026 Mazda CX-5, which felt especially well-suited to those drives. Coming from my decidedly unfancy 2013 sedan, the technology felt like a major upgrade without feeling overwhelming. I liked the Active Driving Display, which projected my speed and the posted speed limit into my line of sight, while features like Lane-Keep Assist and Radar Cruise Control made unfamiliar roads feel less intimidating.

Where to stay

Our home base was Sparkling Hill Resort in Vernon, perched atop a granite ridge overlooking Okanagan Lake. I actually spotted the resort from the airplane before we landed because it’s impossible to miss. Sitting on top of the hill with all its glass, it looked expensive, to put it bluntly.

The room managed to top that first impression. Relaxing spa music and Swarovski crystals greeted me on entry, with the entire back wall made of floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the lake and valley, and a giant soaker tub planted in front of the view.

Sipping lakeside

After settling in, we headed to 50th Parallel Estate Winery just before sunset on a warm and bright early-summer evening.

Known for its “Grand Cru”-like vineyard and standout location boasting panoramic views of the lake, we got a look inside the winery’s underground cellar before sitting down for dinner, where local ingredients stole the show.

The heirloom tomato salad was fresh and simple, the earthy and comforting mushroom risotto was my favourite dish of the night, and the buttery white wines were an easy standout.

The next morning, we traded wine for bread.

To say baking intimidates me is an understatement. I’m the kind of person who wants to mix everything to absolute hell, which is not great if you’re making muffins, but turns out to be exactly what sourdough wants.

Shannon Peckford of Sourdough School House is a far more patient baker than I am and an excellent teacher if baking gives you the heebie-jeebies, as it does for me. After learning the basics and watching our creations come to life in the oven, we each walked away with our own loaf and a dehydrated sourdough starter to take home. Keeping mine alive has since developed into a hobby.

One of my favourite meals of the trip was right where the workshop took place: The Okanagan Table, a private event space where chef Rod Butters and Audrey Surrao’s award-winning team turns out great eats showcasing ingredients from the region. I’m still thinking about the Armstrong asparagus soup with Okanagan chèvre and morels.

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Where to unwind

From there, it was time to relax at Cleopatra’s Rituals, a wellness space in Kelowna offering thermal experiences, hammams, and vinotherapy, among other treatments.

One standout feature was the “snow room,” a large walk-in freezer where artificial snow drifts down in fine, frozen flakes. Thermal cycles are such a spa trend at this point that I don’t need to explain the concept, but this felt like a creative, playful twist.

If I lived in Kelowna, I could absolutely see myself stopping in for a quick thermal cycle session on my lunch break.

 

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After a long day of being pampered and learning how to make sourdough bread (can you believe some people have kept their starters going for more than a century?), I was both full of new information and extremely relaxed. Which made it pretty perfect that I could let the car do much of the thinking with Google navigation and voice control.

Back at Sparkling Hill, I squeezed in one last spa experience at the resort’s KurSpa, where guests have access to several saunas, steam rooms, and hydrotherapy pools. The rose steam room was easily my favourite, and after a couple of busy days exploring the region, it felt like the perfect way to wrap up the trip.

A few days barely scratched the surface, but it was easy to see why people keep coming back. Great local ingredients, standout wines, plenty of opportunities to unwind, and some unreal scenery in between made for a getaway that left me feeling inspired for my next trip west.

The author of this article was hosted by Mazda on behalf of Daily Hive.