Favourite Vancouver Activities in the Summertime
This Summer has been one for the books and by far one of our favourite summers yet. After a tough year and a half, we entered into a scorching hot summer, packed up the car to the brim the day after school ended and took off for five weeks! Every summer we go and stay with my parents in my childhood home for at least 2-3 weeks but this time it was extended twice as we could not stop soaking up the time there exploring and doing all the touristy and local things.
Even though the city has changed so much since we left seven years ago hubby and I still found ourselves asking why we never did some of these things while we lived there before. I feel like so many times we get caught up in the day-to-day or just stay within our municipality(sometimes it's mandated) but this time we had the chance to do different things; explore, eat and try new things! At the end of the trip, I pulled together my favourite things to do in Vancouver so keep reading to find out what we loved doing this summer!
There are still so many things I wanted to do in Vancouver - the city is truly filled with endless possibilities especially in Summer, but here are our faves!
Beachcombing & Seal Watching at Belcarra Park
We took two separate trips to Belcarra Park and loved it both times for completely different reasons! The first time we went was on a weekday morning which was nice and quiet, only us, a few other families enjoying the view and the crab fishers at the end of the dock. Right away we looked out off the dock and saw two seals swimming not too far away and later we got a much closer view as one swam up just past the dock! The kids could spend hours beachcombing; holding small crabs, stacking shells and collecting all different kinds of rocks. The second time we came we did a small hike just off the water and it was gorgeous and perfect for kiddos! There are larger hikes you can do as well if that's something you're up for with apparently beautiful views. The only downside to this location is you now have to pay for parking - I believe it was only around $2/hr so not too bad.
Eat All of the Sushi
There are so many great restaurants to try and things to eat in Vancouver but there is one thing that stands out the most to me - sushi! There are different sushi restaurants it seems like on every corner but I have nailed down my favourite ones so far:
Sushi Modo - Burnaby
Sushi On - Port Coquitlam
Sushi Town - Coquitlam
Gaya Sushi - Burnaby
Hike Around Lighthouse Park
Lighthouse Park is one of my absolute must-do activities every time I visit Vancouver. There is nothing more beautiful than that view of the open sea, the lighthouse and the massive huge rocks the kids love jumping over. One day my wish is to see a whale from one of the rocks - crossing my fingers and toes!
Chase Every Sunset
I mean this quite literately - if you watched my stories from one of the nights we were almost too late so we ran so fast down to the water to watch the sunset across the ocean and was it ever worth it. I would have loved to get down to English Bay or Spanish Banks to watch from there and I know there are some amazing spots to watch from but we did see the sunset at Burnaby Marine park which was magical and we had a sushi and sunset date up on Burnaby Mountain which is an incredible view from up high!
Take an Aqua Bus to Granville Island & Explore
This was a new activity for us this year and it was so much fun we had to do it twice! The first time we did it we took an Aquabus and the second time we took False Creek Ferries which were both amazing. We did prefer FCF as they seemed to come more often and the boats were nicer but that may have been just the ones we took. It was so inexpensive and I would love next time to take one further as they go all the way to the Kitsilano beach area! It took us right to Granville Island where we explored the beautiful market, treated ourselves to all of the treats, did bumper cars in the kid's market and played in the park. This is a MUST do while in Vancouver!
It's safe to say we had the best trip to Vancouver to date and are very slowly adjusting to being back! Summer 2021 has been the best and I cant wait to experience more fun Vancouver activities next year.
Comment below what your favourite touristy activity is in your area!
