Grouse Mountain

Pay your admission to Grouse mountain for $56 for adults or a whole family for $150 and you get a skyride round trip and peak chair ride. In the park there’s also plenty of activities like a skyride (aerial tram), a bird demonstration, a lumberjack show, a chairlift, zip line, shopping, dining and more. You can also go on guided walks or hear ranger talks.
If you want to do a Zipline, mountain biking, heli tours, it is an extra cost.

The skyride up and down was a 6 minute cable car with amazing views of Vancouver and fits about 90 people.

The lumberjack show was great, a little comedic but was worth a watch to see the entertainment and skills. We also enjoyed the bird show with the host showing a few different birds, teaching us about them and seeing their skills demonstrated.

It is also home to two grizzly bears called Grinder and Coola and we enjoyed watching them in the water playing with food and eating.

We did the ridge walk (about 1.5 hour walk up), quite challenging to get to the top in the heat, but once up there it had a 360 degree panoramic views. If you’re up for more of a challenge, you can do the grouse grind, a solid walk from the car park to the mountain (instead of the skyride).

Granville Island

It has heaps of boutiques and galleries selling souvenirs, art, native art, clothing, jewellery. There’s also plenty of food in the public market from bakeries to fish and chips and sushi. We grabbed lemon donut and tasted a couple of other things. There’s also restaurants and a brewery. We tried out a beer flight and a cider at the brewery. You can pick the beers you want in the flight. They even had a beer called the. baconator with smoked malt. It’s a super busy place but just line up a short time and you’ll get in. Staff are friendly and efficient.There’s plenty there for kids too, so the whole family can certainly go. You can drive over the bridge there, catch a bus from Olympic station or catch a cute little tugboat ferry for $4.50 one way or $7.50 return.

Granville Island boat rentals

This was one of the best activities we undertook whist in Vancouver. Rent your own private speed boat to explore the coastline of Vancouver. You don’t need a license, not have driven a boat before. That tag line sucked us in quick. They show you how to use the boat and give the driver a temporary license. You can explore east or west (to the waterfalls – a 4 hour trip) and we picked the west (a 3 hour trip), passing Stanley Park, the lighthouse, Bowen island, fishing and watching the seals. This is a super good activity for a small group. We hired the 17ft-90hp which carries max 5 people and has a stereo. $50 per hour (for 4 hours or more). It’s an extra $10 on weekends. It ends up being quite expensive. We stopped at Bowen Island to explore and even went to a bistro and had a meal. This was superb! What an awesome activity. We loved it.

Rustique Bistro

This was a great find on Bowen Island – the food was amazing!

We tried Brussel sprouts, a poke bowl, Cobb salad and a halibut fish as as well as truffle Parmesan fries. The staff were lovely and food came out super fast. They also sell alcohol and coffees. Worth a visit if you’re on this island.

Gastown

Vancouver grew from this historic location, Vancouver’s oldest town. There is a steam whistle clock and a commercial district with boutiques, restaurants, bars and a interesting array of things to look at. More the boutique style of shop, plenty of homewares stores and expensive art. An easy walk from pretty much anywhere in downtown Vancouver. It’s not exciting but if you’re keen to look around and grab a bite to eat, pop on down.

Here you’ll find Nemesis Coffee which is probably the best coffee you’ll find in Vancouver. All your regular types, cold brew, filtered and more. They also have a delicious range of pastries and food you can order as well. Another good specialty coffee shop was revolver, where you can do a coffee tasting flight consisting of esspresso and milk based coffee.

Nemesis

Revolver

Yaletown

Streets of warehouse style buildings full of restaurants, bars and large patios. There’s also boutique stores and salons and worth a look around. Free wi Fi all around the streets too.

Tap and barrel Brewery

A huge brewery in North Vancouver selling a huge range of beers from across Canada. We tried out a flight and a cider at the brewery. You can pick the beers you want in the flight. We tried the bridge blood orange, beere pale ale (our favourite), brew hall and twin sails IPA’s, and a fat tug. It’s a good way to sample a few beers. We also tried a cocktail and a gin. The food here is also good, we had a few things including the poke bowl and tuna tataki.

Bridal Veil falls

If you’re heading on a drive to Harrison, Bridal Falls is somewhere worth stopping on the way. A beautiful waterfall to admire.A little bit of a trek up so take your hiking boots.

Harrison

1.5 – 2 hours from North Vancouver pending traffic. It’s a resort destination with hot springs, trail walks, boating and fishing activities. The watersports include an inflatable water park, sea doo rentals, bumper boats, banana tube rides and kayaking. Can be accessed through a day pass 11am-6pm and it has a big water park with inflatable slides etc. We paid our entry, which is $33 each and you get tugged out to the park. It’s good fun, hard work climbing all the equipment.

The hot springs can be visited via the public pool or hot springs resort.

Squamish

Take a drive about 1 hour towards whistler and pass through this cute little town surrounded by the chief mountains. You can climb three different peaks here, of three different challenging levels. The second peak is for the regular hiker and don’t attempt 1 unless you’re a seasoned climber.

We ate at Zephyr health food cafe and it’s frequented by a hippie crowd. A good range of brekkie and lunch food like salads and soups. hI got a quinoa salad with with chicken and a satay dressing as well as a orange juice. They also sell vegetarian and vegan food. It was a super long wait (long line) but the food was good.

We also got a big burger at Copper Coil called the Chief – with AAA beef, pulled pork smoked in house, smoked gouda, aioli. It was a pretty good burger – massive and super filling. As a side, we got the poutine: skin on fries, traditional gravy, cheese curd. This place has other stuff like crab cakes, chicken wings and popcorn shrimp.

Alice Lake

A large lake where you can swim, hire paddle boards and kayaks. There was plenty of people here for the holidays. There’s also room to camp and bring your RV.

Cat Lake

Not far from Alice Lake but the entrance is less obvious. A lake shaped like a cat but quite large and lots of people swimming. There’s also a rope swing for the lake. You can also camp here (no fires) and there’s lots of signs about bears and protecting your belongings from bears.

Shannon falls

A spot to stop on or from Squamish. There isn’t much parking but if you manage a spot, the parks and bathrooms are nice and it is only a short walk to the falls on a gravel track. A pretty place to visit.