Vancouver

Stanley Park — a 405-hectare oceanfront park at the northern end of the downtown peninsula, almost a fifth larger than New York's Central Park — defines Vancouver's everyday outdoor character. The Seawall, a continuous 9-kilometre paved path around the park's perimeter, gives near-360-degree views of the harbour, Lions Gate Bridge, Burrard Inlet and the North Shore mountains, and connects further into a 28-kilometre uninterrupted waterfront cycling and walking route across False Creek to Spanish Banks. Inside the park, the Brockton Point totem poles, the Vancouver Aquarium, Beaver Lake, the rose garden and Prospect Point overlook the bridge. The park is reached on foot from downtown's West End in under fifteen minutes.

Gastown — the cobblestoned historic district on the eastern edge of downtown — is the original Vancouver settlement, named for the steamboat captain John “Gassy Jack” Deighton. The Gastown Steam Clock at Cambie and Water Streets, the brick warehouses converted to galleries and restaurants and the original storefronts along Water Street form a compact heritage zone three blocks deep. Chinatown immediately east — one of the oldest Chinatowns in North America, established in the 1880s — extends from Pender through East Pender and Keefer Streets, with the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden as the only authentic Ming Dynasty-style scholar's garden built outside China and the surrounding Chinatown Memorial Plaza marking the district's historic core.

Granville Island — under the Granville Bridge in False Creek, the inlet that defines the south edge of the downtown peninsula — is a 1970s repurposing of a former industrial site into a public market, artisan-studio cluster, theatre district and craft brewery. The Granville Island Public Market holds fifty-plus food stalls; surrounding it the Emily Carr University of Art and Design (a historic Granville Island presence), the Granville Island Brewing taproom, the Arts Club Theatre Company's three stages and several specialty retail buildings fill the island. The False Creek Ferries and Aquabus mini-ferries serve the island from Yaletown, the West End and the Olympic Village across the water — distinctive small craft that are the most efficient and pleasant way across the inlet.

Downtown Vancouver's central business district concentrates around the Burrard, Granville and Robson corridors, with the Vancouver Art Gallery on the courthouse plaza at Robson and Howe as the visual centre. Yaletown — a former rail yard and warehouse district on False Creek — was redeveloped in the 1990s into a restaurant, retail and high-rise residential district connected to downtown by the Canada Line SkyTrain at Yaletown-Roundhouse station. Coal Harbour at the northern end of the peninsula carries the cruise terminal at Canada Place (whose Teflon sail roof is one of the city's signature structures), the seaplane base for Harbour Air flights to Victoria, the 2010 Olympic Cauldron and the waterfront Convention Centre. The Vancouver Lookout at the top of Harbour Centre gives a 360-degree view across all of this from above.

Kitsilano — “Kits” to locals — runs along English Bay south of the inlet from Vanier Park west toward Jericho Beach and the University of British Columbia. Kitsilano Beach, the Vanier-Park-anchored Vancouver Maritime Museum, the H. R. MacMillan Space Centre and the Museum of Vancouver sit at the eastern end; further west, the city's main yoga, brunch and craft-beer culture occupies West 4th Avenue and West Broadway. The University of British Columbia (UBC) at the far western tip of the peninsula carries the Museum of Anthropology — designed by Arthur Erickson, with its Bill Reid-anchored Northwest Coast Indigenous collection one of the most important in the world — and the Pacific Spirit Regional Park's old-growth temperate rainforest.

The North Shore — across Burrard Inlet, reached by Lions Gate Bridge, the SeaBus passenger ferry from Waterfront Station, or the Iron Workers Memorial Bridge to the east — concentrates much of Vancouver's outdoor culture. The Capilano Suspension Bridge, a 137-metre cedar-plank swaying bridge over the Capilano River canyon, is the most visited paid attraction; Lynn Canyon Park nearby offers a free alternative with similar dramatic forest gorges. Grouse Mountain at the top of the Skyride aerial tram (and reachable via the Grouse Grind hiking trail — Vancouver's signature locals-run-up-it climb), Mount Seymour and Cypress Mountain together form the three local ski areas within forty minutes of downtown. The cruise terminal at Canada Place is the main Alaska-itinerary starting point each season from May through September.

Vancouver's transit backbone is the SkyTrain — three driverless rapid-transit lines (Expo, Millennium and Canada) operated by TransLink — plus a comprehensive bus network, the SeaBus passenger ferry to North Vancouver and the West Coast Express commuter rail. The Canada Line runs from Waterfront in downtown directly to Vancouver International Airport (YVR) in 25 minutes; YVR is the country's main Pacific gateway. The Sea-to-Sky Highway 99 runs two hours north to Whistler — the 2010 Winter Olympic ski venue, North America's largest ski resort by area, accessible year-round. BC Place — the retractable-roof downtown stadium and a 2010 Winter Olympics venue — sits directly above the SkyTrain Stadium-Chinatown station, with downtown hotels and most of the central peninsula within a 15-minute walk. Day trips: Victoria on Vancouver Island via BC Ferries (95 minutes plus drive time) or Harbour Air seaplane from Coal Harbour (35 minutes), Whistler (2 hours north), the Fraser Valley wine country (90 minutes east). Time zone: Pacific (PT/PDT).