Vancouver, a bustling west coast seaport in British Columbia, is among Canada’s densest, most ethnically diverse cities.
Vancouver is a delicious juxtaposition of urban sophistication and on-your-doorstep wilderness adventure. The mountains and seascape make the city an outdoor playground for hiking, skiing, kayaking, cycling, and sailing.
PLACES TO VISIT
1.BC SPORTS HALL OF FAME AND MUSEUM
This museum celebrates the province's sports achievers in a series of historical displays. You can test your sprinting, climbing, and throwing prowess in the high-tech participation gallery.
2.BEATY BIODIVERSITY MUSEUM
A vast underground library filled with bones, fossils, and preserved lizards. This modern museum on the UBC campus exhibits more than two million specimens from the university's natural history collections. On the lower level you'll find scads of animal skulls, taxidermied birds, and other creatures displayed through glass windows.
3.BILL REID GALLERY
Named after one of British Columbia's preeminent artists, Bill Reid (1920–98), this small aboriginal gallery showcase current First Nations artists. Displays include wood carvings, jewelry, print, and sculpture, and programs often features artist talks and themed exhibitions such as basket weaving.
4.AMBLESIDE PARK AND BEACH
The long stretch of sand west of the Lions Gate Bridge is West Vancouver's most popular beach. There are tennis courts, volleyball nets, and a water park in the summer.
5.CAPILANO RIVER REGIONAL PARK
Hiking trails and footbridges over the Capilano River can be found in this park. A hundred yards from the parking lot, you can walk across the top of the dam to enjoy striking views of the reservoir and mountains behind it.
6.CATHEDRAL PLACE
Three large sculptures of nurses standing at the corners of the 23 story Cathedral Place with its faux copper roof. Inside another sculpture the Navigational Device is suspended high on the northern wall. A small garden courtyard leads to the entrance of the Bill Reid Gallery.
7.GRANVILLE ISLAND WATER PARK
North America's largest, free public water park has slides, pipes, and sprinklers for children to run through. There's a grassy patch for picnics, and clean washrooms are at the adjacent community center.
8.GROUSE MOUNTAIN
North America's largest aerial tramway, the Skyride is a great way to take in the city, sea, and mountain vistas. Other mountaintop activities include, in summer, lumberjack shows, chairlift rides, walking tours, hiking, falconry demonstrations, and a chance to visit the grizzly bears and gray wolves in the mountain's wildlife refuge. You can also try zip-lining and tandem paragliding, tour the wind turbine that tops the mountain, or take a helicopter flight. In winter you can ski, snowshoe, snowboard, ice-skate on a mountaintop pond, or take Sno-Cat-drawn sleigh rides.
9. H.R. MACMILLAN SPACE CENTRE
The interactive exhibits and high-tech learning systems at this museum include a Virtual Voyages ride, where visitors can take a simulated space journey. Ground Station Canada, showcasing Canada's achievements in space; and the Cosmic Courtyard, full of hands-on space-oriented exhibits including a moon. You can catch daytime astronomy shows or evening music-and-laser shows at the H.R. MacMillan Planetarium.
10.WATERFRONT STATION
This former Canadian Pacific Railway passenger terminal is today the depot for SkyTrain, SeaBus and the West Coast Express. In the main concourse, murals up near the ceiling depict the scenery travelers once saw on journeys across Canada. This is where you catch the SeaBus for a trip across the harbor to the waterfront public market at Lonsdale Quay in North Vancouver.
OTHER PLACE TO VISIT
- Byrnes Block
- Canada Place
- Capilano Suspension Bridge
- Chinese Cultural Centre Museum and Archives
- Christ Church Cathedral
- Contemporary Art Gallery
- Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Chinese Garden
- English Bay
- Equinox Gallery
- Gaoler’s Mews
- Granville Island Brewing and Public Market
- The Hollow Tree
- Kids Market
- Kitsilano Beach
- Klahowya Village
- Library Square
- Lumbermen’s Arch
- Marine Building
- Millennium Gate
- Miniature Railway
- Monte Clark Gallery
- Museum of Anthropology
- Nine O’Clock Gun
- Nitobe Memorial Garden
- Old Hastings Mill Store Museum
- Olympic Cauldron
- Prospect Point
- Queen Elizabeth Park
- Robson Street and Square
- Roedde House Museum
- Sam Kee Building
- Science World
- Siwash Rock
- Stanley Park Nature House, Seawall and Beaches
- Steam clock
- Totem Poles
- Vancouver Aquarium Marine Science Centre
- Vancouver Maritime Museum
- Vancouver Police Museum
The best way to travel is via SkyTrain, bus, or ferry.
Summer is understandably the busiest tourist season. If you want to avoid the glut of visitors, try coming in early fall. The weather is still fairly good, and there will be fewer crowds at the most popular spots.
