Name: VANCOUVER TRAVEL TIPS: 11 Things to Know Before You Go
Uploaded: 2025-08-10T15:01:29.000Z
Duration: 23 min 54 s
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11 things to know before you go to Vancouver in Canada.

I'm Chris, this is The Traveling Princess.

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.

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.

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.

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, and 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.

Great connections to Asia, great connections to the US, great connections to lots of places.

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 is to take the SkyTrain.

It also takes about 30 minutes to get into the city center, and will cost you $9.

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.

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 U.S., and you're going through Vancouver Airport, when you're returning to the U.S., 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 U.S.

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.

So the compass card might look like a paper that you wanna insert someplace.

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.

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.

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.

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 kinda got like a crumb donut, and we got a honey dip donut.

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.

This is a hot dog made of Kurobuta pork, teriyaki mayo on it, teri mayo.

This one over here is the okonomi dog, so it's kind of like the 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.

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VANCOUVER TRAVEL TIPS: 11 Things to Know Before You Go

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