Cache Creek is a small highway town in the dry Thompson country of British Columbia. On first sight it looks like a fuel-and-food stop between Kamloops, the Cariboo, and the Fraser Canyon, and in a practical sense that is exactly what it is. The reason to give it more time is the landscape around it: sagebrush hills, old wagon-road ranches, fossil beds, and small desert parks.
The best single stop is Historic Hat Creek, a preserved Cariboo Wagon Road roadhouse and ranch north of town. East of Cache Creek, the McAbee Fossil Beds hold Eocene fossils in dry, exposed hills. Juniper Beach Provincial Park and Marble Canyon Provincial Park add river, lake, canyon, and desert ecology.
This is not a polished destination. It is best for travellers already driving the interior roads who want the country to become more than a view through the windshield. With a car and a spare day, Cache Creek gives you a compact version of the southern Interior's ranching, road-building, fossil, and dryland stories.