Vancouver has the most spectacular setting of any major city in Canada and possibly in North America: a downtown peninsula wedged between the sea and the Coast Mountains, with snow on the peaks and float planes on the water and a temperate rainforest in the middle of it all. It is consistently ranked among the most liveable cities in the world, and on a clear day it is hard to argue. The catch — there is always a catch — is the rain, which falls reliably and at length through the winter, and the cost of living, which is famously punishing. But for the visitor, arriving in the kinder months, Vancouver is close to ideal: relaxed, outdoorsy, cosmopolitan, and surrounded by some of the finest scenery you will find within a city’s reach.
We’ve been to Vancouver a few times. We’ve driven there from Seattle and then continued into the Canadian rockies and then back to the US.; we’ve started a bike journey in Vancouver and then ridden down the Pacific coast to San Diego; and more recently we stayed in Vancouver before taking a road trip up to Calgary and a flight to Toronto.
A Little Background
The land Vancouver sits on is the unceded traditional territory of three Coast Salish peoples — the Musqueam (xʷməθkʷəy̓əm), the Squamish (Sḵwx̱wú7mesh), and the Tsleil-Waututh — who have lived here for thousands of years. The Musqueam’s principal village stood near the mouth of the Fraser River for some three to four thousand years; the Squamish had villages across what is now the modern city, including the land that became Stanley Park, Kitsilano, and False Creek. The sea and the rivers gave an abundance of salmon and shellfish that supported a dense and settled population long before any European arrival.
George Vancouver, the British naval officer the city is named for, charted the coast in 1792, but settlement came late and abruptly. A saloon opened by “Gassy” Jack Deighton in 1867 to serve workers at a nearby sawmill seeded the settlement of Gastown. The arrival of the Canadian Pacific Railway transformed everything: the city was incorporated and renamed Vancouver in 1886, and within two months a fire destroyed almost all of it in under half an hour. It was rebuilt at once, and the railway turned it into Canada’s great Pacific port — the role, looking west to Asia, that still defines its economy and its remarkably diverse population today.
What to See and Do
Stanley Park is the heart of the city and one of the world’s great urban parks: a thousand acres of temperate rainforest on the tip of the downtown peninsula, ringed by a ten-kilometre seawall that is perfect for walking or cycling, with the sea on one side and old-growth forest on the other. You can hire a bike near the entrance and do the full loop in a couple of unhurried hours. The park is free and is, for many visitors, the single best thing about Vancouver.
Granville Island, tucked under the bridge of the same name in False Creek, is a former industrial site reborn as a public market and arts district. The food market is excellent, the setting on the water is lovely, and admission is free; getting there by the little Aquabus ferries is half the fun. Gastown, the cobbled original quarter, is touristy but handsome, anchored by its absurd and beloved steam-powered clock.
Across the inlet in North Vancouver, the Capilano Suspension Bridge Park is the area’s most-visited paid attraction — a 137-metre bridge swaying 70 metres above the Capilano River, supplemented by a treetop walkway and a vertiginous cliffside walk. It is genuinely thrilling and genuinely commercial in equal measure. Nearby, Grouse Mountain runs a gondola — the Skyride — up to a summit with views back over the whole city, skiing in winter and walking in summer. The serious of leg can climb the Grouse Grind, a punishing 2.5-kilometre staircase of a trail, and ride the gondola back down.
For a deeper sense of the region’s first peoples, the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia holds one of the world’s finest collections of Northwest Coast Indigenous art, including monumental totem poles and the work of the Haida artist Bill Reid, in a striking concrete-and-glass building overlooking the sea. It is one of the most rewarding museums in the country and is worth the trip out to the campus.
Getting There
Vancouver International Airport (YVR) is a major Pacific gateway and connects to downtown in about 25 minutes via the Canada Line, the driverless SkyTrain link — fast, cheap, and easy. The SkyTrain and an extensive bus and SeaBus network cover the city well; downtown and the West End are very walkable. Vancouver is also the southern terminus of the spectacular Rocky Mountaineer rail journey to Banff and Jasper, and a common start or end point for a western Canada itinerary.
Weather
Vancouver has the mildest climate of any major Canadian city, and the wettest. Summers (June–September) are gloriously dry, sunny, and warm without being hot — the best time to visit by a wide margin. Autumn and winter are mild but persistently grey and rainy, with the rain falling as snow only on the nearby mountains, which is why the ski resorts are so close. If your trip allows any choice at all, come between June and September.
The Bottom Line
Vancouver is expensive: mid-range hotels run roughly CAD$250–400 a night, and considerably more in peak summer. Two to three days covers the city comfortably; many visitors use it as a base or a bookend for a wider British Columbia and Rockies trip, which is exactly what it is best suited to. Few cities reward simply being outdoors as generously as this one — the best of Vancouver is free, on foot or by bike, with the mountains in view.