Hello all. I'm going to lovely Vancouver August 13.

[grace0418]

It's our first time visiting. We'll be there a week. Does anyone have any advice? My husband and I are staying in the West End near Davie and Thurlow and will have a rental car. We live in Chicago so are pretty accustomed to urban life and enjoy ethnic food and funky shops. We also love nature hikes so Vancouver seemed like a good mix.

We were thinking of taking a day trip to Whistler to see the view and hike around. Does this seem like a good idea or a lame one? What about Vancouver Island or Victoria?

Thanks in advance! We recently took a short trip to Wisconsin and lovely Wisconsinite DUers were so helpful, so I thought I'd give this a shot.

[tuvor]

1. You're a ten-minute walk away from the view of English Bay I suggested

in the other post.

BTW Davie at Bute has recently gotten a reputation for a lot of drug activity. I'm sure it's not really bad, but forewarned is forearmed.

Good restaurants nearby: Hamburger Mary's and Luxy's (pasta).

[grace0418]

2. Thanks for the advice. Yes, actually I think our hotel is

closer to Bute than Thurlow on Davie so we'll keep an eye out. I've lived in some pretty rough neighborhoods in Chicago so I imagine it won't bug me too much, unless the neighborhood is really ugly and run down. But I doubt that, it looked pretty nice in the pictures.

Thanks for the restaurant advice. Any good groceries in the hood? Our hotel room has a full kitchen so we're going to try to save some money by packing picnic lunches and eating a few dinners at "home."

[tuvor]

3. More info and ideas.

Sounds like you're at that high-rise hotel. I'll bet you'll have a great view, since it's easily the tallest building at the top of the hill for blocks!

It's also going to be noisy, especially on the weekends. And you're right in the heart of gay Vancouver. I've never felt unsafe there day or dead of night, although the recent problems at Bute and Davie concern me. Hopefully it's better than it was when we left Vancouver a couple of years ago.

Another restaurant you must go to is the Boathouse on Beach at Denman. You can't get a much better view of English Bay, and the food's great and not as expensive as they probably have a right to charge. http://www.boathouserestaurants.ca/2004/english_bay.htm

For fresh produce, Golden Choice on Davie at the corner of either Cardero or Bidwell. Good variety and the owners are great. The Safeway across the street doesn't care about quality and is expensive. The cheapest grocery store we usually went to for meat and other staples was Extra Foods in the mall underneath the Coast Plaza on Denman, but there's also a 24-hour SuperValu on Davie between Bute and Jervis.

PM me if you have any more questions in the next few days. I'll be back Sunday evening.

You'll have a great time.

ON EDIT: The Grove Diner on Denman. Really good diner fare, and the site of many successful Sunday morning hangover-nursings for me. :)

[grace0418]

6. That's exactly where we're staying. I'm pretty excited about it.

It gets great reviews on Trip Advisor. The only people who gave it bad reviews were there when it was still being renovated, so most of their complaints had to do with that. Another person hated it but sounded a little spoiled or delusional or both.

Anyway, I hope you don't mind if I PM you when I've had a chance to digest some of this. You've been such a big help, YOU ROCK!

I swear, if you need something, ask your friends on DU.

[V. Kid]

4. Another opportunity to talk about lotusland.

I think going to Whistler, or even just up to Squamish (which is half way between Whistler and Vancouver), is a good idea for a day trip. The Sea to Sky corridor (which is concentrated along highway 99 between Horseshoe Bay and areas north of Whistler, such as Pemberton) is a beautiful area. People say it's hard to drive, and that it's dangerous, but it's really not. Besides, your on holiday, so there's no point in sitting around all day right? Other, but closer nice areas include the Capilano suspension bridge:

http://www.capbridge.com/

Or Lynn Canyon:

http://www.district.north-van.bc.ca/article.asp?c=472

Both of which are a short distance away from the West End.

http://www.district.squamish.bc.ca/

http://www.tourismwhistler.com/

About Shopping:

http://www.hellobc.com/en-CA/SightsActivitiesEvents/Entertainment/Shopping/Vancouver.htm?S=N&Lev1=5

But there are other, nice areas that aren't on that site. It's a little cliché...don't get me wrong those places are worth visiting, but Yaletown is kind of bleh, other than the central Library branch. A few that they missed, in Vancouver Proper, include West Broadway from about Cambie Street to Main Street. I suppose the area from Granville Street to Cambie, is more local orientated, and as a tourist you can see it or not if you have time, it's not hugely important. But if your going to go hiking, and don't have a whole lot of stuff with you, or if you just want more information about good places to hike around south western BC, you could go to the area between Cambie and Main on Broadway, because it sort of an outdoors/recreational store district. Outside of Vancouver a few areas you might want to consider going to include:

http://www.lonsdalequay.com/ In North Vancouver.

http://www.westminsterquay.com/ In New Westminster

http://metropolis.shopping.ca/cambridge/jsp3/index_flash.jsp?mallid=met (Which if your more ecclectic isn't that great as it's just a big mall, with an arcade, movie theatre, lots of shops etc.) It's in Burnaby.

There are also various Asian malls in Richmond, if that's of any interest to you. Including places like Yohan centre and Aberdeen Centre:

http://www.aberdeencentre.com/en/about.php

The Island is nice too, perhaps a day trip is a good idea, but If you have time perhaps staying on the Island for a few days would be a better one. Maybe even staying on the Gulf Islands for a bit of time would be a good idea as well. I only say this because you have to take a ferry, about 2 hours to Vancouver Island, about 1 and half to the Gulf Islands, from the Mainland. And while it does take about 2 - 3 hours (depending on how fast you and your husband drive) to get to Whistler, it seems less annoying because you don't have to take a ferry...but maybe that's just my personal preference for not sitting around doing pretty much nothing showing through (although there are things to do to go on the Ferry).

http://www.victoriabc.com/

If you want to go east areas like Bridal Falls (about 100K/66 miles east of Vancouver) is nice, Hells Gate (in the Fraser Canyon area), and Harrison Hot Springs (about the same distance east of Vancouver...just on the North side of the Fraser River):

http://www.bcadventure.com/janlee/fraser/fraser.htm (Fraser Canyon)

http://www.bridalfalls.ca/

http://www.harrison.ca/harrison/

I’m sure I can think of more things to see, especially in areas outside of the South Island, and SW BC, but I might get carried away. There are defenetly more things to do in Vancouver than just shopping and hiking, but this is a good overview.

[grace0418]

5. Uh, V. Kid, YOU ROCK!

Thanks for all the info. It's going to take me awhile to read all of this but I will for sure. This is fantastic.

[HEyHEY]

7. I suggest you fly baxter air to Nanaimo and spend a day on Gabriola

Island. They fly from downtown and for $60 per person CDN will get you to the Island in 15 minutes as opposed to a couple of hours. Then you take the ferry from Nanaimo to Gab, it's about a 20 minutes ride. Tons of B&Bs there and it's an amazing place for natural beauty and what not.
It's a lot of fun.
ANd don't be too scared of East Van, there's some cool stuff if you are brave enough to venture there.
I personally have never been a big fan of Whistler myself, but others seem to like it.

Oh, also...do you like whiskey?

[V. Kid]

8. Actually that's a good suggestion (the plane thing)....

...but speaking of alcohol, Grace if you and your husband like beer perhaps you could try some of the wares of the Granville Island breweries.

[grace0418]

9. Well, I'm off tomorrow. Thank you for all the great suggestions.

I will let you all know how it went when we return (or maybe sooner, we're bringing out laptop- we're such geeks). You all rock, I'm sure we're going to have a fantastic time thanks to you all.