Vancouver: How to Visit and What to Know
Give Vancouver 3 to 5 days and skip the paid attractions that don’t earn their price. The Stanley Park Seawall is free, roughly 9km around, and beats every ticketed alternative in the city outright. Capilano Suspension Bridge charges CAD 75-80 for an experience Lynn Canyon gives away for free a few kilometers over. Get comfortable with those two facts and this city stops being expensive by accident and starts being expensive on purpose, which is a much better way to spend a travel budget.
Key facts
| Currency | Canadian dollar (CAD), roughly USD 0.72-0.73 per CAD |
| Getting from YVR | Canada Line, about 25 min, roughly CAD 9.35 total with the AddFare |
| Wettest month | November, 300mm+ of rain across 18-20 rain days |
| Driest months | July and August, 40-55mm, highs of 20-25°C |
Stanley Park and the Seawall
405 hectares of temperate rainforest on a peninsula jutting into Burrard Inlet, with the Seawall running the perimeter, close to 9km of paved path shared by bikes, runners, and walkers. A full loop takes 1.5 to 2.5 hours. The totem poles at Brockton Point are the classic photo stop, and early weekday mornings hand you the forest sections almost empty. Bike and rollerblade rental near the Georgia or Denman Street entrances runs roughly CAD 9-18 an hour. Compare a guided Seawall bike tour on Viator if you’d rather have someone else handle the logistics.
Granville Island
A former industrial site under the Granville Street bridge, converted in the 1970s into Vancouver’s best public market, alongside studios, galleries, and a working theatre scene. The Public Market is free to enter and worth a full morning for fresh bread, smoked salmon, and produce. The Aquabus and False Creek Ferries, small passenger boats, connect it to Yaletown and downtown for a few dollars one-way.
Capilano versus Lynn Canyon: pick one bridge
Capilano Suspension Bridge Park runs roughly CAD 75-80 for an adult ticket and includes the 137m bridge itself, Treetops Adventure, and the Cliffwalk, genuinely worth it if those extras appeal to you. Lynn Canyon , a municipal North Vancouver park, is completely free, its own 1912 suspension bridge hangs about 50m above Lynn Creek, and it sits inside real old-growth-adjacent rainforest with hiking trails beyond it. Most people who visit only one walk away preferring Lynn Canyon on pure value. See current Capilano ticket tiers on GetYourGuide if the extras win you over anyway.
Grouse Mountain
The Skyride gondola runs roughly CAD 86-89 for an adult ticket up to the “Peak of Vancouver,” with a mountaintop wildlife refuge, a lumberjack show, and genuine viewpoints over the city and the Strait of Georgia. Reach it by SeaBus to Lonsdale Quay (about 12 minutes) plus a connecting bus, or a 25-30 minute drive. Pair it with either suspension bridge for one full North Shore day.
Museum of Anthropology
Reopened 13 June 2024 after an 18-month seismic upgrade, and still worth flagging clearly: it is not closed, has not been closed for two years, and the Great Hall’s glass-walled Northwest Coast art collection is one of the genuinely singular sights in the city. Adult admission is CAD 26. Full visiting logistics are in our Museum of Anthropology page .
Gastown and Chinatown
Gastown is Vancouver’s oldest neighborhood, its steam clock at Water and Cambie the obligatory photo, though the main strip runs souvenir-heavy, better food sits a block off it. Chinatown next door is one of North America’s older Chinatowns, the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden its standout stop, though its eastern edge blends into the Downtown Eastside along East Hastings Street, worth a plain heads-up rather than either alarm or silence: visible homelessness and open drug use, rarely targeted at tourists, easy to route around.
Eating
Japadog’s street-cart fusion has run since 2005 and is still the fastest way into the city’s Japanese-Canadian food history. Meat & Bread and Ask for Luigi in Gastown cover porchetta sandwiches and pasta respectively, both worth a queue. Richmond, a straight Canada Line ride south, runs a stronger and cheaper dim sum scene than downtown Chinatown, Parker Place mall on No. 3 Road is the easiest starting point. Add GST plus PST, about 12% combined, to every menu price, and tip 15-20% on the pre-tax total.
Getting around and where to stay
The Canada Line, Expo Line, and Millennium Line SkyTrains, plus the SeaBus to North Vancouver, all run on the same Compass Card zone-fare system, a DayPass around CAD 11.50 is usually the best value for a single sightseeing day crossing zones. Downtown and the West End keep you closest to Stanley Park and English Bay; Gastown keeps you closer to the SeaBus and Chinatown. Check downtown Vancouver hotel rates on Booking.com before settling on a neighborhood, both work fine as a single base for 3 to 5 days.