Pacific Northwest and Western Canada Road Trip: Vancouver (Days 1-3)

Looking at downtown Vancouver from Stanley Park

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Two Days in Vancouver, British Columbia

Our 11-day road trip that would carry us across international borders twice started with a couple of days in Vancouver before we headed to Washington state and ultimately north again to Banff.

One of the best parts about heading west is that the start of a trip feels like a magically long day. Even though we left our hometown of Roanoke, Virginia, and it’s teeny, easily accessible airport on a 6:15am flight, we were all the way on the opposite coast, landing in Vancouver before 11am local time, even though we had a layover in Chicago en route.

The same cannot be said, unfortunately, for the trip home at the end, where vacation comes crashing to an end with time speeding up!

Two days - really more like one and a half - is not a lot of time to spend in a city like Vancouver, which has so much to offer. It was enough time to explore several amazing parts of the city and get its overall flavor.

English Bay Beach in downtown Vancouver at sunset

A view of downtown Vancouver from Stanley Park

One of the transplanted totem poles at Stanley Park

where we stayed in vancouver

While it changed hands within a year after our trip, we stayed at the West End Guest House . Based on current reviews since that time, it seems like it is still a fantastic place to stay. The prior owners had had enough of the gray, chilly Vancouver winters - when we were there they talked about how much those wore on them, though they otherwise loved the area - and moved to an island where they purchased a hardware store.

Our stay was lovely, and the food was delicious. The dining room where we ate breakfast was family style, so we had a chance to get to know a couple of other guests. One was a couple from Australia on a multi-month trip through the US and Canada. They riveted us with tales of their trip, and we may or may not have been visibly drooling over all the amazing places they were seeing! After Vancouver, they were going to head further north to Whistler, which we would head south.

Vancouver is situated right on the water with tall mountains as a backdrop - a beautiful setting for a city!

A maze that visitors can explore at VanDusen Botanical Gardens

Sea and space merge with a contrail in the sky behind a lighthouse at Stanley Park

The West End Guest House was built in 1906 and is an example of classic Victorian architecture. The house first became a B&B - Vancouver’s first! - in the 1980s. We found the B&B to be in a great location - from it we were able to walk to restaurants, down to the coast for sunset views, and any of the places we visited by car were very easily accessible from this spot. We would definitely stay there again if our travels returned us to Vancouver.

Vancouver: Day 1

what we did in vancouver: Stanley Park

We did what we do best in cities - we hunted down the best outdoor spots! After arriving on our first day, getting checked in at the B&B and grabbing a bite to eat, we headed over to Stanley Park, 1,000 acres of interesting spots to explore!

Stanley Park has a reputation of being one of the best city parks in the world. The park has over 16 miles of meandering trails, which is how we explored the park. We parked our car, and then headed off wandering around seeing what there was to see. We took the Brockton Point Trail, which is part of the eastern side of the park near Coal Harbor. This trail allowed us to see many popular sights in the park, including the nine totem poles brought to the site from throughout British Columbia, the Nine O’Clock Gun (a cannon that is shot off at 9pm nightly), the Brockton Point Lighthouse, a portion of the Seawall trail, and views of the harbor and downtown Vancouver from across the water.

We spent the entire afternoon exploring Stanley Park and only saw a tiny piece of it. Same goes for the Seawall, which is a waterfront path that circumnavigates Stanley Park and also skirts the downtown area of Vancouver. The walking and biking path is the world’s longest, uninterrupted waterfront pathway at about 17 miles in length.

dinner in vancouver: espana restaurant

After stirring up quite an appetite with the long day of travel and walking, we went to a restaurant that we could walk to from the B&B (just over 1/2 a mile away) and which was one of several recommendations made by the owners. Espana Restaurant is - as one might expect - a Spanish restaurant. It describes itself as a ‘low-lit, intimate tapas bar with locally sourced, Spanish small plates,’ which is a fair description. The restaurant itself is quite small and cozy, two-top tables lined up close together. Is there anything better than tapas? Ordering a multitude of interesting small plates makes it so much easier to try a lot of what a restaurant offers and provides interesting variety in the meal. For some reason I don’t feel like there are enough tapas restaurants in the US/Canada so I always try to visit them when I can!

what we did in vancouver: english bay beach

Our shadows on driftwood at English Bay Beach while watching the sunset, glistening off the water.

The bay had a range of vessels from sailboats to barges

After dinner, we decided to scope out English Bay Beach, known for being one of the most beautiful urban beaches. The beach was located less than a mile from the B&B so we were able to walk from dinner and back to the B&B easily enough. With Vancouver’s skyline behind us, we found a spot on the sand overlooking the Pacific Ocean during the final daylight. The sun was blinding as it reflected off the water, and there were a large number of ships and barges in the distance, all of which looked pure black against the blinding and receding daylight.

We watched the slowly setting sun with a multitude of others who had come to the beach for the same purpose. The beach was crowded without being packed. Because it was late June, the official time of sunset was about 9:20pm, a far cry from winter sunsets at about 4:20pm - the yin and yang of places further away from the equator!

Vancouver: Day 2

what we did in vancouver: hiking at lighthouse park

Maybe a bald eagle atop the lighthouse at Lighthouse Park

Situated right on the water - nearly surrounded by it in fact - we felt like in order to experience more of Vancouver, we wanted to hike in a spot near the ocean. We found Lighthouse Park, which looked like a perfect spot. Getting there requires a short drive - about 30 minutes - north through Stanley Park, across Lions Gate Bridge and then west to Lighthouse Park.

Lighthouse Park includes old growth coastal forest. While there is in fact a lighthouse there on Point Atkinson, it is visible from afar but cannot be directly accessed by visitors. There are multiple trails and lookout points, and the entire trail map system is viewable here. The park is also known as a great spot for birdwatching.

We spent one and a half hours hiking through the woods at the park before pausing for lunch and leaving for our afternoon destination.

Hiking at Lighthouse Park through sun-speckled ferns

what we did in vancouver: vandusen botanical gardens

This minotaur sculpture was one of many scattered throughout VanDusen Botanical Gardens, adding a whimsy to the beautiful nature-scape.

The drive from Lighthouse Park to VanDusen, which is south of the city, was about 45 minutes in length and took us through a number of residential areas, which gave us a flavor for Vancouver outside of the central downtown area.

VanDusen Botanical Gardens are nestled within a residential area, 55-acres of walled off land that are mesmerizing small worlds of nature unto themselves. We have visited a multitude of botanical gardens around the world - in places as northern as Akureyri, Iceland and as southern as Phoenix, Arizona. This one remains one of our favorites.

The garden has distinct miniature worlds and unique features. One particularly interesting part was the impressively constructed maze, which was near a pond with ducks, who splashed around in the water and tolerated our photo taking. There were various sculptures scattered throughout, an area with totem poles, lakes, areas that imbued entirely foreign parts of the world (e.g., Mediterranean and Scottish heather), along with traditional rose gardens and rock gardens.