Vancouver Visitors Guide
About Vancouver
Vancouver is one of the most beautiful cities in the world. There aren't many cities in the world that offer Vancouver's combination of big-city lifestyle and healthy outdoor living.
Vancouver is a fun, safe, clean and gay-friendly cosmopolitan city with spectacular natural beauty. Our snow-capped mountains, temperate rainforest and Pacific Ocean provide us with numerous places to ski, hike, play and explore.
Vancouver has a long standing reputation as a progressive and tolerant city that is accepting of our thriving LGBT community and embraces our differences. Vancouver has one of the largest gay populations in Canada and our LGBT community is a key part of our city's social, economic and cultural life. We are thrilled to showcase our city and we welcome the opportunity to share our Vancouver with you and the world.
If you are coming to Vancouver for Pride, we recommend that you stay at our Official Pride Hotel; The Marriott Pinnacle Downtown Vancouver.
To see the online video of the Marriott Pinnacle Downtown Vancouver, click here.
To take advantage of the special Pride Package they offer and to reserve your room, click here. A donation will be made to the Vancouver Pride Society for each guest booking this Pride deal.
Queer Vancouver
Vancouver is one of the most progressive cities in the world in its attitudes towards the LGBT community. In fact, Vancouver has one of the largest LGBT populations in Canada. The local community has two distinct neighborhoods - the West End and Commercial Drive, both of which enjoy a wide variety of restaurants, coffee shops, pubs and boutiques catering to gays and lesbians.
WestEnd: A high-density residential neighbourhood in the heart of downtown. The epicentre of the scene is the stretch of Davie Street between Burrard and Jervis, known as Davie Village with its cluster of cafes, casual eateries, pubs, nightclubs and shops. The beautiful beaches of English Bay are also popular attractions in this area.
Commercial Drive: known locally as "The Drive", is a popular neighbourhood for Vancouver's thriving lesbian community. This funky, East side neighborhood is packed with reasonably priced ethnic restaurants, cafes, shops and services. The Drive can be easily accessed by car and transit.
Nightlife: Vancouver is also home to a variety of gay and gay-friendly bars, pubs, cabarets and nightclubs. Whether you're looking for a candlelight dinner or a night on the town, Vancouver will satisfy all your cravings.
Top 10s
Top 10 Things to do while visiting Vancouver
1. Sit on any beach at English Bay with a coffee
2. Eat, Drink and Party in the Davie Village
3. Get photographed at Stanley Park, Totem Poles
4. Walk around the Seawall
5. Explore the market at Granville Island
6. Visit the Vancouver Museum at Vanier Park
7. Shop on Robson Street & South Granville
8. See the steam clock blow in historic Gastown
9. Stroll along the sails at Canada Place
10. Ride the Gondola to the top of Grouse Mountain
Top 10 Facts About Vancouver & BC
1. 80% of Canada's population lives less than 250 kilometres from the U.S. border
2. Many great inventions are Canadian: basketball, the electric light bulb, the electron microscope, standard time, television, the telephone, and the zipper
3. First Nations people have lived in the Vancouver area for almost 9,000 years
4. Vancouver was incorporated in 1886 and named after Captain Vancouver.
5. Howard Hughes, spent his final months living in the penthouse of the Westin Bayshore.
6. Vancouver is the only city in Canada where more than half of all locals speak a first language other than English.
7. Vancouver is the only major city in North America without a single freeway within city limits
8. Vancouver has the highest rate of people who walk and bike to work of any major city in North America.
9. According to the UN 2007 World Drug Report, British Columbians smoke the most marijuana per capita in the Industrialized World. (Marijuana is also estimated to be one of the largest industries in BC, making over 7.5 billion dollar annually.)
10. There are approximately 3,750 restaurants in Vancouver & locals eat out more than anywhere else in North America
Top 10 neighbourhoods to explore
1. West End
2. Kitsilano
3. Commercial Drive
4. South Granville
5. South Main Street
6. Chinatown
7. Gastown
8. Yaletown
9. Kerrisdale
10. UBC
Vancouver Walks
Three Walks Under an Hour (the Mountains are North)
Robson to Denman to English Bay (approx time 1 hour)
'Robsonstrasse' was how this famous shopping area was referred to in the 60's. Coming from the hotel on Thurlow street, Robson will intersect. You'll know it because it has 2 Starbucks across the street from each other! If you walk East (left) towards the Art Gallery, you'll come to the Roots Store at Burrard.
Go West (Right) at Robson , follow down the hill past Robson Public Market and Capers Organic Community Market until you come to BoJangles on the corner. At Denman, head south and you'll pass lots of great restaurants, The West End Community Centre, Mom's Gelato, Delaney's Coffee, Cupcake Café and Starbucks on the corner of Denman and Davie. Grab a coffee and head to the beach.
If you look north, you'll notice a hotel covered in vines; this is The Sylvia Hotel and was once the tallest building in Vancouver. Try to spot a tree growing from the top of a building and that is how tall the forests once were on the West Coast. If you head south, you'll walk on the seawall towards the Inukshuk, an Inuit rock sculpture that traditionally acted as a compass or marker.
Continue around on the seawall and you'll eventually come to the Vancouver AIDS memorial. A beautiful wall built into the hill with names engraved. At this point, find a log on the beach and relax, you deserve it after that walk!
Thurlow to Davie Village to Yaletown (approx time 50 mins)
Walk from the hotel up Thurlow and continue past Robson Street. You'll pass St. Paul's Hospital, The Dr. Peter Centre and Mole Hill Houses at Nelson Park. When you get to Davie Street, again, there will be a Starbucks. If you were to go west, (right) down the hill, you'll pass tons of restaurants, stores, and further down the hill, past the Macaroni Grill Mansion you'll come to English Bay.
From Davie and Thurlow, going east, (left) you'll walk past the Fountainhead Pub, Celebrities Nightclub and restaurants for all tastes and budgets. Keep walking until you come to Homer or Hamilton and walk around this renovated warehouse district to Mainland and Pacific. There is lots of construction as the rapid transit line is being built so you'll have to zip zag.
Eventually, you'll come to the Roundhouse community Centre in an old train station on Pacific Boulevard. Urban Fare across the street is a high end market and beside it, there's a Starbucks, so grab a coffee and continue to the art installation at the very end of Davie at the waterfront. You can join the seawall and walk either direction and enjoy the view.
Canada Place to Gastown to Chinatown (approx time 45 mins)
Walk north on Thurlow to Cordova Street, turn right to Waterfront Centre and you'll find Tourism Vancouver. There is a bureau du change, information kiosks, theatre ticket booking and all the brochures you can imagine. Walk around to the sails of Canada Place, a famous feature of Vancouver's skyline which adorns the World Trade and Convention Centre, the C.N. Imax Theatre and the Pan Pacific Hotel.
Go back to Cordova Street and walk past the Waterfront Seabus Station, to the cobblestone streets of the historic Gastown district. Follow to the corner of Water Street where you'll find the steam clock. It's driven by a mechanism that was designed in 1875 and still ticks today. Every quarter hour, steam sets off a series of musical whistles. There's a Starbucks across the street, (surprised??? we're a city of coffee drinkers, if you haven't noticed already...) grab a coffee and walk until you come to Maple Tree Square. It is on this spot where "Gassy" Jack Deighton opened the first saloon in the area and gave his name to the area. The first elections in Vancouver were held under a tree in this square. This is where they say it all began.
Follow Carrall Street a couple of blocks to Chinatown, North America's second largest after San Francisco. On Pender street, you'll see the Millennium Gate, the imperial entrance to Chinatown. Further up Carrall you'll find the peaceful, Ming style oasis of the Sun Yet-Sen Traditional Chinese Garden. Keefer and Pender are the heart of Chinatown and you'll find herb shops, fresh and dried seafood, vegetables, inexpensive house wares and traditional Chinese medicines in one of the city's oldest districts.
