VANCOUVER TRAVEL TIPS- 11 Things to Know Before You Go

11 things to know before you go to Vancouver in Canada. I'm Chris, this is The Traveling Princess. This is Yellow Productions. We do travel guides that are fun, informative, entertaining, and in this video, we're gonna tell you everything you need to know before you visit Vancouver, including how to get in, how to get around, what to eat, what to do, and of course, what to stay. Let's get right into it. The first thing to know is just some general information about Vancouver. Vancouver is the largest city in Western Canada, the third largest in all of Canada. 2.6 million people live here. It's a relatively new city, 125 years old. It gets its name from George Vancouver, who rolled here on a ship in the 1700s. It is a coastal rainforest, so clean air, fresh air, most of the activities to do here are outdoors. We're gonna talk more about the weather as we get going, so we'll talk about that later, but as you can see, it does rain quite often, and many people often nickname Vancouver Raincouver. The second thing you need to know is just a little bit to help you get oriented in Vancouver, Vancouver is divided into the west side, the east side, and the city center. Not to be confused with North Vancouver, which is a separate city, and so is West Vancouver. Now, the city center, that's where all the businesses are, that's the hustle and bustle. The west end, it's near Stanley Park. Some of the residents of Vancouver call it the best end, and right here where we are, this is Gastown. This is the site of the original settlement of Vancouver. We'll see more about this and the steam clock a little bit later in Things to Do. The third thing to know is about getting into Vancouver. If you're flying into Vancouver, you'll be coming into YVR Airport. It's located about 30 minutes south of the city center. It is Canada's busiest airport. Great connections to Asia, great connections to the US, great connections to lots of places. Clean, modern airport, and efficient. Like I say, if you're driving or taking a taxi, it's about 30 minutes to the south. It's in a city called Richmond, different than Vancouver. If you're taking public transportation, the best way to take the SkyTrain, it also takes about 30 minutes to get into the city center, and will cost you $9. Some other ways to get into Vancouver. If you're coming from Seattle, you can drive. It takes about two and a half hours driving from Seattle. You can also take the Amtrak from Seattle. It'll take you about four and a half hours. I think you're probably a little crazy if you do that. You can also take a cruise ship. Cruise ships, when they're running, come into Canada Place, right in the center of the Central Business District. Whatever way you pick, I think all of them seem pretty good. One note, if you're flying in here from the US, and you're going through Vancouver Airport, when you're returning to the US, you clear customs here in Vancouver, so allocate some extra time on your way back home to clear customs here, not where you're landing in the US. You need to know about getting around Vancouver. There's a number of different ways to get around Vancouver. It has a really good public transportation network. Of course, there's buses, as there are in any cities. There's the SkyTrain, which is pretty good. It's elevated most places. It's a subway in the city center. So the compass card might look like a paper that you wanna insert someplace. There's no place to insert. You just tap it, and it lets you out. Tap in, tap out. Easy to ride. It's clean, efficient. The trains come pretty quickly, so that's pretty good. Now, if you are gonna be going to the outskirts, you will want a rental car. Rental cars, you can pick them at Vancouver Airport. But if you're driving and parking in the city center, be careful, because pretty much all of the spaces are metered and I wanna point out right here that the meters are from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. seven days a week. Pay attention to this, because if you don't, then, like me, you might end up with a parking ticket. That's right, we parked on a Sunday night at 8 p.m., assuming there wouldn't be meters in effect, but there were. So make sure you feed your meter. In addition to Canadian coins, the meters will also take American coins if you have American quarters, and they also have this pay-by-phone app. You can download the app, and you can pay for the meters. That's what we've been doing since we got this nasty ticket. If, in case, you're wondering how much it is, it's about $40 Canadian, if not too much, but they're pretty ruthless about it. Seven days a week, 9 to 10 p.m. Now, if you are renting and driving a car, make sure you remember the license plate, because in Vancouver, you often pay by your license plate, and you often have to pay in advance, even in parking garages. Here at this Whole Foods in Vancouver, the way they validate the parking is you pay for parking first, bring the receipt up to you, then when you pay, they take how much you paid for parking off of your total bill. So remember your license plate, and when you're getting parking validated, bring that receipt in to get it taken off. And be prepared to pay a lot for your parking. Here at Pacific Center, in the city center business district, $4 per half hour is the parking rate. And destinations that you might not consider, places that you normally have to pay for parking, perhaps like at city parks, you have to pay to park there too. Pretty much any place you're parking your car in Vancouver, plan to pay for your parking. Here's what it looks like in Queen Victoria Park, and you can see you can use this to punch in your license plate if you didn't use one of the apps. If you do have one of the apps, then you can see it has the number of the parking lot that you're in. There's all these different apps, but as I mentioned before, my favorite is the pay by phone app. So one of the best ways to get around Vancouver, particularly if you're going to Granville Island, is to take the AquaBus. It's on the water, there's great views, and it's dry on a rainy day. Before you go to Vancouver, you need to know about food, and there's a lot of great food in Vancouver. If there's one place you need to go if you're a foodie, it is the Granville Public Market. This public market that we're sitting in right here, tons of food options, prepared foods, fast food, Chinese food, baked goods. The most famous thing here, though, Lee's Donuts, and we've got three different donuts here. We've got an apple donut, we've kind of got like a crumb donut, and we've got a honey dip donut. Try my apple donut. It's a good sweet donut for sure. If you come here, no admission. You do have to pay for parking. The views are really neat, and to get here, you can also take the AquaBus or the False Creek Ferries as a neat way to get here on the water since it is on an island. If you wanna see more of a walkthrough through this market, I've got a whole walking tour of the market coming up soon, so make sure to stay tuned. Check out my Vancouver playlist for that. For some cheap and quick street food in downtown Vancouver, head to Japadog. This place serves Japanese-style hot dogs. They're two most popular, the number one and the number two. Starting with this one. This is a hot dog made of Kurobuta pork teriyaki mayo on it, teri mayo. This one over here is the okonomiyaki dog, so it's kind of like got okonomiyaki flakes, like a Japanese pancake on a hot dog. This place, they've got three stands, and they've got one brick-and-mortar location that I mentioned is open until 3 a.m., open late. Let's dive into this premium Japanese hot dog. Okay, well, I liked it. It's her first time having a hot dog. So a style of cuisine you should definitely eat when you're in Vancouver is Asian food, and right now we're at something opposite of Granville Public Market. This is Yidian Tuanjuda Beijing Duck House. This is the famous Peking duck restaurant from Beijing, and if you come here, it takes an hour to cook the duck. Maybe call ahead, unlike us, but we waited an hour for our Peking duck, $100 for the duck. And if you really like Asian eats food court style, check out Aberdeen Center in Richmond. This mall, it's entirely an Asian mall. The food court is entirely an Asian food court, so you got lots of options here. And it's located in Richmond, so this is pretty good on your way in or out of Vancouver's airport. Now, what if you want dim sum and you don't wanna go to a restaurant or you want it for dinner? Chef Tony Dim Sum at Metropolis Metro Town in the food court, dim sum for dinner. You get a combo. It's a little more than 10 bucks Canadian, six pieces of dim sum, noodles, or rice. Only took three minutes to get it, so you can't beat that. Vancouver's also home to a lot of Japanese food, and one unique option is called Kokoro. It's kind of near Gastown, but a few blocks away. This is maze soba. What's maze soba? It's a noodle, like a flour, buckwheat noodle that doesn't have any soup. Usually Japanese bowls of noodles have soup. This one, the noodles are actually under all of these toppings, and if you come in here, it comes with a little bit of a raw egg, and then you break this, and then you mix it up, and after you mix it all together, then you go ahead and eat what is this saucy noodle right here. So, let's go ahead and give this unique Japanese noodle dish a go. Nice and flavorful, warm, perfectly chewy noodles. I like it, and these traditional soba noodles have much more buckwheat. These are maybe like a cross between soba and udon. They're more floury than typical soba noodles I've had, and those are kind of cool. The milk tea they have here comes in a bag, kind of like it does in Thailand. They call this a Tokyo milk tea. I've never seen Tokyo milk tea in a bag, but in Thailand it comes this way all the time, and as you start to get done with the noodles, then they bring you a small portion of rice. They'll ask you if you want free rice, and you'll say yes. It's a small bowl, and then you mix the rice in with the remaining sauce. This is kind of the sauce that was under the noodles, so you mix that in, and now you get this saucy rice mixture that's then basically your second course after the noodles. Pretty good, too. When you're in Vancouver, you definitely should eat poutine. What's poutine? It's this. It's gravy fries with cheese curds. You can get these almost anywhere. We're eating these at the Capilano Bridge Suspension Park. Let's dive into this one, see how it tastes. You can get them at A&W. Most places you get burgers and fries, couple more bucks, you get it with gravy and cheese curds. Another specialty you'll find in Vancouver is a number of Malaysian restaurants. Here at Banana Leaf on Willow and Broadway, we have a Singapore laksa. Singapore, Malaysian, they're right next to each other, and this is a classic dish of Singapore. Come in here and take a look. Lots of seafood, shrimp, squid, and noodles in a curry spicy sauce. Let's go ahead and check this one out. Good noodles. Let's go ahead and try the soup. Nice coconut taste and a spicy aftertaste. If you like spicy, you'll like their Singapore laksa. And our other favorite Malaysian specialty is char kway teow, stir-fried rice noodles with seafood in there as well. For an appetizer, get the roti canai. It's kind of like a Malaysian crepe, and also get the Malaysian iced tea to drink. The sixth thing to know before you go is about where to stay in Vancouver, and so we're doing this video from our hotel room in the Hyatt Regency, Vancouver, Traveling Princess is having a really good time here. She enjoyed this hotel. We've got a full video review on it. You can find that coming out soon. Another great hotel is the Fairmont Vancouver Hotel. It's like the classic downtown Vancouver hotel erected in 1939, but I think the best place to stay is definitely in the Central Business District where you can get on the SkyTrain. You can take the SkyTrain from the airport here. You can walk around to a lot of the major sites. Shuttles to places like the Kapilano Suspension Bridge Park come from here, so you can get to anything from the Central Business District, and if you like luxury hotels, which we do, you'll find every luxury hotel brand in Vancouver, including the St. Regis, JW Marriott, and more. Now, if you're flying out with an early flight out of Vancouver Airport, you might wanna consider the Fairmont Vancouver Airport Hotel. We stayed there on our last night in Vancouver because we had an early morning flight, and so that one is actually directly connected to the airport. You'll also find our review on that one coming out in a few weeks. Before you go to Vancouver, you need to know about the money. Now, things may look expensive at first glance, but if you're coming from the U.S., remember the exchange rate is about one U.S. dollar to $1.25 Canadian dollars. There are no pennies in Canada. They've done away with that coin. There are one and $2 coins known as the loonie, the $1 coin, and the $2 coin is the toonie. They do tip here in Vancouver. Good tips for service at a restaurant, 15 to 20%, and remember, there's a provincial sales tax and a general sales tax. Totals up to be about 12 or 13%. Eighth thing to know is about the weather in Vancouver, and we're from Southern California, and Southern California, well, we would consider Vancouver to be cold, but in terms of Canadian climates, this is one of the most mild cities in all of Canada. Summer's relatively short. June, July, August, highs in the mid-70s. That's about mid-20s Celsius. In the winter, lows about four degrees, seven degrees Celsius. It doesn't really snow much in Vancouver proper. If it does, it doesn't stick. The snow is in the mountains just up in the hill in Whistler nearby. Great time to come if you wanna see the leaves changing is in October or November. That's where you see all these leaves. Spring is a good time to come. Summer is really nice because it's dry. It doesn't rain much in the summer, but then between September and April, it basically rains constantly. We have a nice, sunny day, but most of our week trip here is raining, as you can see from the rest of the videos we've done here. We do them on the sunny days, but Vancouver's often named Rain-couver because of all the rain in the winter, so bring some rain gear. The ninth thing to know is about the language, and in Vancouver, it's English, Canadian English, which is a little accented English. They don't say A as much as they do in the east coast of Canada. It is not French. That's other parts of Canada. Although you will find Mandarin and Cantonese spoken here very widely, you can consider that to be the second most popular language that you'll hear spoken all the time as you're going throughout Canada. So if Mandarin is your primary language, you might actually be able to get around okay here. The 10th thing to know before you go to Vancouver is about shopping and where to shop, and there's a lot of high-end shopping in Vancouver. We're gonna get to those districts in a moment, but if you're looking for touristy stuff in Gastown, I think the best souvenir shop right here, Hudson House, it's got the bear and the moose in front of it, and the biggest decoration of maple syrup and maple leaves I have ever seen, so for all your souvenirs needs, Hudson House in Gastown. If you're looking for something a little more designer, Herschel has a location in Gastown just a couple of stores down from the Hudson House. They've got backpacks, rain jackets, lots of cool Canadian stuff in here. So another great place for shopping is Granville Island. When you're done with the Granville Public Market, you're done eating, check out some of the shops. There's a lot of shops on this island. There's a lot of other things to do as well. It's raining now, so that's why we're in our raincoats. And by the way, I wanna point out this thing I got here. If you wonder what's that other strap, this is called the Goose Kit, and this is a thing to take toddlers and basically have them sit in it. I can't do it here on camera, but then it takes the weight off your arms so you don't have to carry them all day as much as maybe she likes to be carried all day. And one of the market buildings on Granville Island is perfect for the traveling princess. It's the kid's market, nothing but toy shops. Some of the stores here are really unique. This one, the Granville Island Broom Company, sells nothing but brooms. But the heart of Vancouver's shopping is along Robson Street, this street right here. This is where all the fashion stores are. This is where all the trendy stores are. The center of it is right around the Pacific Center Mall. There's a Robson kind of square that's there, and underneath that Pacific Center, there's 150 underground shops. It's one level below ground, so if you weren't looking for it or didn't know it was there, you probably wouldn't find it. There is a big Nordstrom's on the outside that you can find to go into. It has a food court underneath with a bunch of restaurants, but on Robson Street, if you keep walking, well, I've got a musical interlude here. If you keep walking, then you will get to a lot of restaurants in the West End. Take a look at the musical interlude that we have here. That's where that music is coming from. Now, our favorite store on Robson Street is Muji. It's a Japanese clothing and houseware store. Most of the stuff in here is imported from Japan, stuff you won't find anywhere else. Now, let's talk about things to do. You should definitely visit Stanley Park, this park right here. This is Vancouver's big city park. There's over 1,000 acres in this park. It's been voted by TripAdvisor as the number one city park anywhere in the world. It has this really neat seawall that you can walk along. It has bikes that you can ride. If you do the bike ride, though, it's one way, so make sure you ride that bike the right way. You can rent bicycles here. Definitely check out the Totem Poles. This used to be an area where the Native Americans that lived in Canada lived here. And when you're done with this before or afterwards, make sure you check out the neighboring Coal Harbor Walkway. There's these kind of futuristic condos that are just right across the harbor, and there's a neat walkway over there where you can see Stanley Park from there, but here you can take a look at those futuristic condo buildings. If you're here in the summer, you'll also find a few beaches that you'll enjoy. You are in Canada, so the water is never gonna be all that warm. And definitely make sure you pick up one of the Stanley Park guide maps. You'll find them at all the concession stands and gift shops, and they're actually pretty good and detailed. You can see the traveling princess knows everything about the park already. Now, if you are driving your car into Stanley Park, make sure to drive slow because the roads are sometimes shared with bicycles, and you may have to yield for flocks of Canadian geese. All the parking in Stanley Park is pay parking by the one hour, by the two hours, or about eight bucks Canadian for all day. The parking meters nicely take credit cards. When you're in Vancouver, it's in the Canadian state of British Columbia, and so there's plenty of British things to eat here, including fish and chips, and you know the fish is gonna be fresh up here. And if you wanna get off the beaten path, there are tons of hiking trails and walking trails throughout Stanley Park that you can really get away from everything. Now, earlier I said this park was voted one of the best parks in the world. Is it better than Central Park? We think it is. The reason why, much more relaxing. When we go to park, we wanna be relaxed. When we're in Central Park, it's always busy. We always feel hurried, but here in Stanley Park, just feels very peaceful. And the ocean view around it, truly amazing. And much like Central Park in New York City, you can also take a horse-drawn carriage tour through Stanley Park. They're about 50 bucks a person, one hour narrated tour through the park. But one of the neat things about walking through Stanley Park is it smells like a Christmas tree farm because many of these trees are Douglas firs, some of them as old as 450 years old. And if you're a fan of animals that live under the water, well then you'll definitely enjoy checking out Vancouver Aquarium right in the center of the park. Now, we talked about Gastown earlier in the orientation. You should definitely wander around here as the city's heart where it got started. And every hour, you should make sure to see the steam clock show. Yes, it's really touristy, but it's pretty cool. Where else in the world do you get to see steam clocks like this? Actually, since many of you watch this, if you have seen a steam clock like this anywhere else in the world, let me know. But when you're in Vancouver, definitely see this one to hear the song and then hear it belt out. ♪ Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh ♪ One thing that makes Vancouver particularly Canadian city is their sense of Canadian humor. This shop right in front of the steam clock says they've been photo bombing the steam clock since 2018. Wacky Canadian humor. Another neat city park to visit is Queen Elizabeth Park. This one on the south side of the city on a big hill has views of downtown Vancouver. Great for changing of the leaves here in the winter. And if it's a rainy day, there's a neat conservatory in the middle that has like birds and summer plants and it's indoors so you don't get rained on. You'll also find some public art throughout the park. This one is called Love in the Rain where visitors can place their locks on here so their love always brings them back to Vancouver. Traveling princess, did you put one on there for your papa? Now while Stanley Park is like a natural rainforest, this is definitely a manufactured garden. You can see this grass has been cut here recently and this wasn't always a garden before this. It used to be a quarry where they would mine rocks. And if you're hungry while you're in Queen Elizabeth Park, there's a restaurant called Seasons in the park right above the small quarry gardens. It's a sit down, kind of fancy restaurant. To experience a really unique attraction close to the city, visit the Capilano Suspension Bridge Park. This is essentially a theme park that is based in the mountains with a really neat suspension bridge that sways. It's really cool. It costs admission to come in here. It's $55 for adults, free for kids under six. Great if you have kids. And it's only a 15 minute drive from the city. And you get to walk across this bridge. So if you're not interested in spending the admission to go to the Capilano Suspension Bridge Park, you can check out this one. This is the Lynn Canyon Suspension Bridge. It's a park, just a regular park, not a theme park. And so admission to this is free. I think one of the coolest things about this park though is the waterfall that you see right down there. That's why it seems really loud. There's a waterfall on this side. There's a waterfall on that side. It's raining right now. And so I think that makes these go even more. It's a long way down as well. But this bridge is not quite as long as the Capilano Suspension Bridge. Actually, it is quite shorter. So just the bridge, Capilano's better. But if you're coming looking for hiking, the hikes here are better. So you can pick your poison or do like we did and check out both. And then as soon as you cross over the bridge, you'll see a boardwalk, just like Capilano Suspension Bridge Park, a little bit. Though this one, not as manufactured, not as safe, not as great for kiddos, no place to eat here. But if you're looking to do lots of hiking along with your suspension bridge walk, you'll likely enjoy this place better. And one last point to help you pick between the two, this one at Lynn Canyon, because it's much shorter. It really doesn't sway, where the Capilano Bridge sways a lot. So if you're afraid of heights, maybe Lynn Canyon. And the last thing to know is we've got more videos. If you're coming to Vancouver, you might enjoy watching some more of our videos, including walking tours of the Granville Public Market, some hotel reviews, and more. So as usual, we won't say goodbye, and we'll see you in the next video.