Other than layovers at the Vancouver airport (and nearby hotels), I’ve never spent any time in the city. I’ve had several amazing vacations in nearby Victoria and other areas on Vancouver Island, and would go back there at a moment’s notice, but I’ve always found peoples’ obsession with Vancouver itself to be a liiiittle bit annoying and thought it must be overhyped.
Well, I was wrong (as I often am).
When we booked a trip to Abbotsford, British Columbia this past November to visit my boyfriend’s cousin, we thought – why not spend a night in Vancouver? The heart of the city is only an hour’s drive from Abbotsford, and Holden’s cousin would be working for the first day of our trip anyway.
We reserved a rental car, booked a hotel, and decided we’d go to Vancouver to spend the day (and night) wandering around before heading back to Abbotsford for an extended long weekend.
Due to the short flight and one hour (earlier) time difference, we arrived at the Abbotsford airport (YXX) on Thursday of the November long weekend with almost a full day ahead of us. We headed over to the Enterprise rental car counter to pick up our Vancouver vehicle.
This was actually my first time renting a car (there just hadn’t ever been a need for one so far in my adult life). I had booked the ‘compact’ car option online a few weeks prior to our trip – there were only the two of us, with two small bags, so there was no need for larger vehicle. Plus, I was a little nervous about driving (and parking) in downtown Vancouver, so I figured the smaller the car, the better.
We got up to the counter, and the employee asked if I was alright with a ‘Sienna’. I had no idea what type of car that was, but figured it would be approximately what I had booked, so I said yes. Well, we got out to the parking lot and walked over to the stall number we’d been given to find out that a Sienna is a family of eight-sized Toyota van. So – pretty much exactly the opposite of what I’d booked.
With not a whole lot of options at that point, I decided to suck it up and be an adult and just drive this beast around (we nicknamed her ‘Big Bertha’). We headed for our first stop, Lynn Canyon Park in North Vancouver (you can learn more about our experience on that hike here.)
After Lynn Canyon, we decided to visit the other suspension bridge in the area as well – the famous Capilano. This was about a 10 – 15 minute drive from Lynn Canyon Park – I didn’t realize that things were so close together in the Vancouver area! As it turned out, the Capilano Suspension Bridge was a little more commercialized than Lynn Canyon. It cost $54 PER PERSON to gain access to the park and suspension bridge, and then an additional $20+ to park there. No thanks!
Instead, we called our hotel to see if our room was ready (which it was), and we opted to drive straight there. We stayed at the Best Western Plus Sands on Davie Street, which had a (free!) multi-level surface parking lot, quelling all of my concerns about parking in downtown Van. The hotel was less than a 25 minute drive from Capilano (this drive took us over the Lion’s Gate Bridge and through the gorgeous Stanley Park as well – I’d love to go back and explore this park next time). And driving in Vancouver turned out to be no big deal. Even nearing rush hour, the traffic wasn’t anything crazy, and navigating the city streets was easy (luckily I didn’t have to try and park on the street, as that might have been a different story). It was more like driving in Calgary or Edmonton than the Toronto-level nightmare I’d been expecting.
The hotel was nice enough – we’d gotten a really good rate, it was within walking distance of everywhere we wanted to go (a huge plus for me and Big Bertha), and we have a view of the Pacific Ocean from our balcony! After not having seen any ocean in nearly 3 years, I was beyond excited about this.
We quickly explore the room + admired the view, and then hit the streets. We wanted to make the most of our time in the city! Our first stop was, of course, coffee. We popped into the adorable Matchstick Cafe (apparently this is a bit of a local chain, and there are several locations – we went to the one on Davie Street, right up from our hotel) to caffeinate before the rest of our adventures.
From here, realizing we hadn’t really eaten all day, our natural next choice was La Belle Patate for poutine (there used to be one of these in Canmore, Alberta as well, before it became 514 Poutine).
We’d planned to check out this bar Holden had been to before called Score On Davie for some of their extravagant Caesars, shot skis, and other fun beverages, but we walked out of the poutine restaurant to discover that the sun was setting (how had the day gone by so quickly?!), and made a mad dash for the beach instead.
I later discovered that the beach we’d found ourselves at (which just happened to be the closest spot we could access from La Belle Patate) was called Sunset Beach. Very appropriately named – we were right on English Bay and enjoyed one of the most stunning sunsets I’d ever seen (but then again, aren’t they all?).
After the sun was down, we strolled along the water, back up towards our hotel in the West End. Since we’d missed out on the bar with the fun drinks (I didn’t really want to walk all the way back after that), we decided to find a place near the hotel instead. We stumbled across The Three Brits Public House about half a block from our Best Western, which had an amaaaazing happy hour.
We’d planned to go for a nice dinner and have a bit of a night out, but by this point we were exhausted from our early morning flight, the hike, and a day of adventuring around Vancouver. So instead, we picked up a few drinks from a nearby liquor store (I was thrilled to find my favourite Georgian Bay Gin Smashes here) and went up to our room and ordered ROOM SERVICE! I’ve only had room service two other times in my life (once on a trip to Kananaskis with my dad’s company and the other as a treat on my last night in Thailand), and I still find it so exciting. It was perfect after a long day to just sit in bed, drink my gin smash, watch some Netflix, and eat pasta that someone had delivered right to the door.
We had to check out of our hotel at noon on Friday, so we woke up (somewhat) early, and set out walking again. We stopped at Matchstick for more coffee, and then Holden took me to Gastown – a 35-40 minute walk from the hotel, but worth it to not have to deal with that big van in a very touristy area!
We saw the famous Gastown Steam Clock, the Vancouver Art Gallery, a very cool shoe store-slash-art gallery called Six Hundred Four, and Canada Place, among many other things…
After rushing back to the Best Western to make check out at noon, we got food at the hotel restaurant, The Park Pub – at this point I hadn’t had eaten yet and was getting more than a little hangry. I had a chicken quesadilla, and Holden got a burger, and this place was awesome (is it just me, or have dining options at hotels really improved over the last few years??)
Sadly, our time in Van City had come to an end, and we made our way back to the parking lot, where Big Bertha was waiting to whisk us back to Abbotsford.
I think I let out a huge breath I didn’t know I’d been holding when we made it back to the rental car parking lot without a single scratch on the vehicle. We dropped the van off at the Abbotsford airport and said good-bye to Big Bertha (hopefully to never meet again), and then Holden’s cousin’s roommate picked us up and our Abby adventure began! You can read about our main activity during the time we spent in Abbotsford here.
