Vancouver British Columbia: City Life Meets Coastal Beauty

Posted on July 20, 2024November 6, 2025 by jim

We looked at several options for spending time in Vancouver the week after our Vancouver Island trip, and finally decided on taking the Amtrak from Bellingham Washington into downtown Vancouver.
No worrying about a parking spot for the Jeeperz.
Faster clearance through the border control in both direction, last week going to Vancouver Island was fast going into Canada, and absolutely terrible coming back into the US.
While not nearly as nice as the Amtraks I used to take when working in DC, it is very nice to hop on at the Bellingham station, sit down, and just enjoy the view out the window until you arrive in Vancouver.
The Vancouver train station isn’t terribly convenient to where we’re staying in the West End area of town, but we knew that ahead of time and slimmed down our carry-ons to two backpacks.
The problem with quality cameras is that the amount of glass required in big lenses is heavy – 24 pounds in my pack and 12 in Colette’s. Good thing that neither of us skip leg day.
We’re not city people at all, but if you HAVE to live in a major city for work, this is it.
Water on both sides, green space everywhere, food options, mountain views – Vancouver really has a lot going for it.
That may not be the case for the greater metropolitan area, but the downtown area is very nice for a city.
Vancouver is also very, very expensive. I’m sure it doesn’t help that we booked on the weekend of a huge fireworks show, but everything here is pricey even with the favorable exchange rate to the US dollar.
We wandered through the Gastown district on our way from the train station to our AirBNB just to see the Gastown Steam Clock and to remember why we stay away from areas like this and the Canada Place cruise ship port next door.
The West End district is a perfect spot for seeing the city, we can’t recommend it highly enough if you can find reasonably-priced accommodations.
No trip to Vancouver would be complete without hitting Granville Island. Originally built as an industrial area (not something related as was my first guess), the area has been revitalized as a shopping district with a very popular farmers market. You absolutely have to get a donut from Lee’s Donuts inside the market, and spend time wandering through the colorful displays of local fruits, vegetables, seafood, and other delicacies. A lot like Seattle’s Pikes Place Market, it’s cool to see once.
There are small bathtub-looking ferry boats to whisk you from one side of False Creek to the other, very convenient and reasonably priced so we hopped on one just to say we did it.
We were lucky enough to book during the Honda Celebration of Light – a massive fireworks display from a barge out in English Bay on the west side of town.
Free fireworks, plenty of great people watching, and staying out way, way, way past our bedtime. I still need to process the firework photos, it’s hard to cull them down since they’re all amazing!
Is Vancouver a re-visit? No.
I can see us returning to British Columbia hit up Kelowna, Kamloops, Whistler Mountain and some of the outlying areas, but the city itself is one-and-done. Too many big cities all over the world still to see, no reason to come back here.