Vancouver
Canada
A glass city between the mountains and the sea, and it rains
Photo by Mike Benna on Unsplash
Photos by Anthony Maw, Luke Lawreszuk, Anastasiya Dalenka and Anastasiya Dalenka on Unsplash
Best time to visit all of Canada
June to September
Climate month by month
The next sixteen daysOpen-Meteo
Average high and low · °C
Rainfall · mm per month
Best months to visit This month · wettest 337mm in Nov
Where it is
49.28°N, 123.12°W Open in Google Maps
Things to do
A week easily- Cycle the Stanley Park seawall
- Take the SeaBus over and the Grouse Grind up, if your legs allow
- Eat through Granville Island market
- Spend an afternoon in Kitsilano or at Wreck Beach
- Ride the Sea-to-Sky highway towards Whistler
- Eat Cantonese in Richmond, which is where the good stuff is
Vancouver travel tipsthe general rules
Currency budget Canada
ExpensivePrices exclude tax: British Columbia adds 5% GST and 7% PST at the till, and restaurant bills expect 15-20% on top. Cards and phones work everywhere including on the buses, so cash is close to unnecessary.
ATMs & cards
Use the big five — RBC, TD, Scotiabank, BMO, CIBC — rather than the white-label machines in convenience stores, which charge C$3-4 on top of your own bank. Decline conversion at the screen.
Avoid these
- white-label machines in convenience stores, which add C$3-4
Use these instead
- RBC
- TD
- Scotiabank
- BMO
- CIBC
Prices exclude 5% GST and 7% PST until the till.
Wherever you are: if the machine offers to charge you in your home currency, decline. That is dynamic currency conversion and the rate is set by the ATM's operator, not your bank.
Safety all of Canada
SafeA very safe city with one visible exception: the Downtown Eastside around Hastings and Main is the sharp end of Canada’s drug crisis, and while it is not dangerous to walk through in daylight it is confronting and best not wandered into at night. Otherwise the risks are outdoors — cold Pacific water, bears on the North Shore trails, and weather that turns on a mountain in an hour.
Where to walk, and where to pay attention (7 areas)
Comfortable, including after dark
- West End, Vancouver
- Kitsilano
- Yaletown
- Gastown — by day
Worth more attention
- Downtown Eastside — which has a visible and severe drug crisis
- Car break-ins at trailhead car parks, which are constant
- Hiking the North Shore mountains unprepared, which is the region’s standing rescue problem
Our own assessment, not a sourced index.
Entry & visa Canada visa rules
Travel authorisation requiredup to 180 daysC$7
An eTA is required to fly to Canada and is valid five years. It is not needed if you are arriving by land or sea. Apply only through the canada.ca site — C$7 is the whole fee.
Other passports
No visa neededup to 180 days
Visa required in advanceC$100
A visitor visa, applied for online with biometrics.
How to get it: Apply for the eTA at canada.ca; most are approved within minutes but some are held for days, so do it well before booking anything non-refundable.
Entry rules change often and depend on your passport, not where you live — the official page above is the authority, and the airline checks before you board.
Before you fly: travel authorisation
Electronic Travel Authorisation (eTA)RequiredCAN$7
Before you book, ideally. Most are approved in minutes.
Have these in front of you before you start:
- passport
- a credit or debit card
- an email address
Valid five years or until the passport expires. Anyone flying in needs one; driving across does not.
Use the official link above. Sites that charge a "service fee" to submit one of these for you are not the government, and they want the same passport details the real form does.
Health & emergencies all of Canada
Good but costlyRequired to enter
No vaccinations are required for entry from Europe or North America.
Jabs worth having, and what happens if you need a doctor
Worth having
- Routine vaccinations up to date
Getting treated
Excellent, and expensive for visitors — there is no reciprocal arrangement with most countries, and an emergency admission runs to thousands of dollars. Travel insurance with a high medical limit is essential. In the Rockies, mountain rescue is coordinated by Parks Canada and is not billed, but the helicopter and hospital that follow are.
Wildlife and weather rather than illness. Carry bear spray on trails and know how to use it. Hypothermia is possible in any month at altitude, and snow closes passes well outside winter.
Orientation, not medical advice — entry rules change and what you need depends on your own history. Check with a travel clinic four to six weeks before you go.
Food tip
Very goodThe best Asian food in North America outside of maybe LA — Cantonese in Richmond, Japanese everywhere, and a sushi standard that spoils you for elsewhere. Also salmon, spot prawns in May, and a coffee scene that takes itself seriously. Granville Island is touristy and still worth a morning.
Nightlife
Craft beer taken very seriously, a small club scene, and mountains that empty the city by ten on a Friday in winter.
- Gastown — the cocktail bars and the cobbles
- Granville Street — the club strip, at its own volume
- Mount Pleasant — the breweries, and the good ones
Closing: 03:00 on Granville, 01:00 elsewhere.
A beer in a bar: C$8–10
Getting around
Easy- UberWorks here
- LyftWorks here
- BoltNot here
- Against a taxi
- A little under the meter. British Columbia only allowed ride-hailing in 2020 and the supply here is still thinner than in Toronto.
Time zone and your working day
America/Vancouver — 3 hours behind you
5 hours of overlap with a 09:00–17:00 day where you are — 12:00–17:00 your time, 09:00–14:00 theirs.
No overlap with a 09:00–17:00 day where you are. Working from here means one of you keeps odd hours — their day starts at 12:00 on your clock.
office hours both at once night
Their 09:00–17:00 is 12:00–20:00 on yours.
The difference from the UK, Europe, the US and ten more
Worked out against America/New York, which is where this request looks like it came from.
Internet speedall of Canada
Why these are Canada's numbers and not Vancouver's
Home broadband — Fast. Several people on calls at once, large uploads, 4K. Broadband here runs at 2× the global median of 130 Mbps.
Mobile data — Fair. Maps, calls and streaming; tethering a laptop works for an hour, not a day. Mobile runs at 79% of the global median of 109 Mbps.
Ookla publishes no separate figure for Vancouver, so these are medians for all of Canada. Cities usually beat the national number and remote islands and national parks fall well below it — treat this as the country's shape, not as a measurement of the street you will be staying on.
A median is the middle of every connection tested there, old copper and new fibre together — so in a country part-way through laying fibre it sits well below what a fibre line actually delivers, and a rental on one can run several times this number. Half of the connections are slower; a fibre flat is rarely one of them. It says what a place can do, not what your rental does, so every listing on Holistay carries its own measured speed and the date it was tested.
Getting online: Airalo or Holafly — a data eSIM for Canada, installed before you fly and working the moment you land.
Source: Ookla Speedtest Global Index · measured June 2026
Must-see
Nearby day trips
Say a few words
Canadian English
- A one-dollar coinA loonieLOO-nee
- A two-dollar coinA toonieTOO-nee
- A knitted winter hatA toquetook
- The last item takenThe last one, sorry
4 more phrases
- A rural cottageA cabin, or a chalet in the Rockies
- Right? / Agreed?Eh?ay
- Bear sprayBear spray — carry it, actually
- Washroom, not toiletWhere’s the washroom?
The language is English; the vocabulary occasionally is not.
Religion
Christian majority, and secular
Christian by heritage with a fast-growing share reporting no religion. Indigenous spiritual traditions are recognised, and their sites carry protocols worth respecting.
Do's and don'ts
Do
- Queue properly, hold doors, and apologise reflexively — it really is the norm
- Tip 15-20% in restaurants and for taxis; staff wages assume it
- Carry bear spray on Rockies trails and know how to use it
- Take note of which province you are in — rules on alcohol, cannabis and driving differ
Don't
- Do not assume Canada is a variant of the United States; it lands badly
- Do not approach or feed wildlife, and never get between a bear and its cubs
- Do not underestimate distances — the Rockies are far bigger than the map suggests
- Do not litter or leave food out at a campsite; it is both a fine and a genuine danger
Where to stay in Vancouver
No Holistay rentals in Vancouver yet — the platform is just opening up. Every listing here will have a video tour and the option to negotiate the nightly price directly with the host.
In the meantime, here is Vancouver on the sites that do have the inventory — each search is already filled in:
- Booking.com hotels, guesthouses and apartments — the widest coverage almost everywhere
- Airbnb whole homes and apartments, and the better option for a week or more
How to get there
Fly into Vancouver YVR
26 minfrom the airport· 11 km as the crow flies
Canada Line SkyTrain to downtown, 26 min.
Google Flights · Rome2Rio for the trains, buses and ferries as well as the flights
