Elaine Loves, Travel+EventsNovember 20, 2014December 17, 2014

Travel Diaries: 4 Days in Vancouver, BC

by Elaine

My first trip to Vancouver, BC was in the summer of 2013 but I fell in love with city – Vancouver I’ll be a regular visitor for sure! I highlight some of my favourite places to visit for a quick trip to Beautiful BC!

Since it was my first time visiting I planned it out as a short trip because since Vancouver is a pretty pricey city. When I booked the flight I wasn’t sure where we would be staying so I wanted to minimize hotel and eating out costs.

 

To save some money I booked with airbnb. If you’re not familiar with airbnb I really recommend you checking it out. Basically people put up their own homes for short term rent. My preference is to look for spaces where I would be occupying the entire space (a shared space means you’d essentially have a roommate there with you!). I was skeptical at first as this was my first experience using the service but it was excellent and I will definitely use it again. I couldn’t have asked for a better location and we saved a ton of money since it was much less than staying at a hotel and we had a kitchen to work with so we could at least eat breakfast and some snacks without having to eat out. Most of our days were spent out so we usually ate lunch and dinner in restaurants.

 

Here’s what I managed to do with 4 days in Vancouver. If you have only a few days like I did the first thing I would recommend is visiting Stanley Park. Even if you have no set plans for the day it’s worth just walking around, renting a bike or having a picnic.

You could even go for a nice run or walk – it’s about 11 km with beautiful views all around – there is always something to see including a HUGE outdoor pool!

 

Vancouver is broken up into many small sections such as Gas Town, Yale Town, Robson Street etc. But they are all so close to each other I’m worried I will mess it up so I will just call it all “downtown”.

Another day of your trip could be exploring Vancouver’s downtown area; it’s quite small so it was great that we could walk wherever we needed to go. The only time we took a cab was to and from the airport. We enjoyed window shopping, eating great food and just having a coffee.

While downtown you of course should check out the Olympic Torch! I also really loved the Digital Orca.  I couldn’t get enough of seeing sea and mountains everywhere!

I would recommend taking a day trip to Whistler if you can too.

See what I mean about mountains everywhere –  probably the most picturesque A&W I’ve ever seen! You’ll definitely want to check out the Olympic rings and snap a mandatory tourist photo too 😉

I would recommend spending they day in Whistler. There’s a lot to see and do there. We unfortunately didn’t have too much time as we wanted to make to our way to Squamish to climb “The Chief” which was probably the most memorable part of the trip.

While I don’t claim to be a health nut or exercise freak I would recommend you be in pretty good physical condition before deciding to take on this mountain as it was extremely challenging.

Extremely challenging but worth the view. Here is the view from the 2nd peak:

We spent a day with family as well since it was our first trip out West. I would also recommend a trip the Aquarium – when we were there it was still under renovations but I’ve been told it’s quite impressive now!  An entire day could be spent checking out the different boutiques in Vancouver and just restaurant hopping.

 Have you been to Vancouver? I would love to hear your favourite areas to visit!