One Full Day of Things To Do in Vancouver, Canada

What to do Vancouver Canada

Tom and I often find that we lack the “get up and go” for a full day of sightseeing that many other travelers have. More often than not we get sucked into work or our daily routines, and consider ourselves lucky if we manage to squeeze in a few “sights” a week.

My sister Sarah met us in Vancouver for a Canadian holiday, so we really made an effort to put our computer work and sloth-like ways aside to see more of the city with her. Sarah has a nature blog that only uses the camera on her iPhone, it’s pretty sweet and you can check it out here. This day we managed to get out of the house right after lunch (at about 1:00pm) and so fancied ourselves extremely accomplished.

Stanley Park

Stanley Park

Stanley Park was voted ‘top park in the entire world’ in 2014 by TripAdvisor. That is a bold statement, but one that I have to agree with after our visit there. It is a HUGE (even bigger than central park in NYC) and covered in forests of 1,000 year old trees, animals of all types and is almost completely surrounded by the waters of the Pacific Ocean.

Stanley Park Fauna

We spent hours in the park exploring trails, finding tree stumps to climb, mushrooms to photograph and goslings to chase after. After completing a full loop of the park from one side to another we were ready to start walking towards dinner.

Tree Climbing Stanley Park

Gastown Steam Clock

On our way to dinner we walked by the corner of Cambie and Water Street to check out the Gastown steam clock, which was built in the 1970’s to cover a steam grate. The clock harnesses the steam to whistle out the time every quarter hour like a tea kettle.

Gastown Steam Clock

After seeing the steam clock whistle, which it did admirably, we continued our walk to Wildebeest for drinks and dinner.

Wildebeest

Wildebeest cocktail menu

Wildebeest describes itself as having a “gastronomically daring menu that focuses on whole-animal cookery prepared with the utmost integrity.” The cocktails at Wildebeest were superb (probably the stand-out of the meal for me), and the food was wonderful as well. Everything we had from the “foraged & harvested greens & elderflower vinaigrette” to the “Wildebeest cheesecake crumble & strawberry sorbet” was absolutely delicious!

Wildebeest Vancouver Dinner

Sunset along The Canadian Trail

After our meat-centric dinner we were ready for a sunset stroll before taking the metro back to our neighborhood. The Canadian Trail is a promenade along the water at “Canada Place” the big port by the city center. Canada place is also where we disembarked from our two-week cruise across the Pacific.

The Canadian Trail Sunset

The Canadian Trail is full of cute outdoor displays teaching about Canada’s past and present. More importantly, it is an absolutely gorgeous place to stroll during the sunset to watch the sky erupt into oranges, pinks and purples.

Canada Place Sunset

Trivia Night

After the sun finished setting we took the metro back to “our” neighborhood to go to Trivia night at Falconetti’s, a bar just a block or two away from the house we rented. Trivia night is unfortunately not pictured, but it was a blast, and I would definitely check it out if you find yourself in the area on a Tuesday night. It was especially fun since my Sister is a trivia whiz. All Tom and I had to do was sit back and nurse some drinks while she carried our team almost all the way to victory. Especially impressive since so many of the current events and sports trivia was about British Columbia!

There are so many things to do in Vancouver and we loved our short time there exploring the vibrant neighborhood we stayed in at an airbnb rental, and the city at large. Our rental was off of Commercial drive and the neighborhood was packed to the gills with restaurants, bars, cafes and little shops. It was easy to take the metro to the city center to explore, and enough to do around the house to make us not want to leave!

Jenny

I think of California as officially "home" but can usually be found a lot closer to the equatorial belt. After finishing a Masters program in 2011 I found myself trying to decide between a couple of different high-powered career options. I decided I wasn't quite ready to "grow up" and went with an entirely different plan which involved selling off everything I owned with my partner Tom and buying a one-way ticket to Colombia. Our plan was to travel "Till The Money Ran Out" and then go home to start our grown-up lives. Instead, we started our own app development company on the road and have been criss-crossing the globe, traveling, working, eating spicy food and refusing to "grow up" ever since. You can find me on Twitter, , Facebook or send me a message using our About Us page.

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5 Responses

  1. Sarah says:

    Aw, thanks! In fairness, most of the pictures on my blog were taken with my phone, but some of the older ones were taken with a slightly fancier digital camera.

  2. Philip says:

    I love Stanley Park. It has been many years but I remember its space and beauty quite well.

  3. Frank says:

    Beautiful photos! I lived there for a time many years ago and it is a beautiful city, the most beautiful in Canada. We hope to get there sometimes in 2016.
    Frank (Bbqboy)

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