Vancouver, Sea-to-Sky Highway & Whistler

Welcome to Vancouver, where mountains greet the city and locals are obsessed with coffee. If you're looking for a city that blends urban charm with natural wonders, you will love Vancouver too!

We expected Vancouver’s weather to feel quite like San Francisco, and it does, but there is where their similarity ends. This west coast city boasts many vibrant waterfront neighbourhoods. These neighbourhoods exude a laid-back charm, with bustling marinas, trendy cafes, and friendly locals!

In our last trip post, we ended at Jasper. Our itinerary had us driving to Kamloops to spend a night, and then heading to Whistler to spend another night. And finally driving down to Vancouver via the Sea to Sky Highway. Technically, we went from Sky to Sea since we drove in the opposite direction 😂

In hindsight, we would have driven from Kamloops to Vancouver instead. Why? You may ask. Because the drive from Kamloops to Whistler sucks big time.

The route was full of windy and hilly roads, with few stops for breaks. It is a pretty stressful drive, and an uncomfortable one for the passengers. If you are travelling with kids and elderly, it is best you avoid this route.

There were some blogs recommending the route as a scenic one, but we don’t share that sentiment. It didn’t help that there was flooding and mudslides happening due to heavy rainfall and bursting rivers. We were monitoring the situation closely and thankfully it was deemed safe for us to drive the route, albeit with some road closures, diversions and noticeable mud and gravel on some parts.

The Mayor of Cache Creek described the flooding in the town as the worst he has witnessed in 50 years. Locals living along the route are no strangers to natural disasters, but climate change may aggravate the destruction and disruption to their lives.

We highly recommend you visit Whistler from Vancouver, and NOT from Kamloops during periods when heavy rainfall or flooding is expected. You have been warned 🙃

We are on our final leg of our Canada Trip. As usual, we create a comprehensive map of the places we visited and short notes about them. Particularly to this final leg, we have noted places we want to go the next time we visit here. Hopefully you have more time, and can visit them too!

#1 Whistler - XXI Olympic Winter Games Village

Whistler is a popular alpine village and a winter wonderland, renowned for its world-class ski slopes and snow-capped peaks, Whistler is a dream destination for winter sports enthusiasts. We went in May, where most ski slopes are closed (we don’t ski anyway), and there was no snow in the Village. Still, it was worth a 1-day visit!

Whistler is a great place for a day visit or even a night stay. It is only a short 1+hr drive from Vancouver, and it transports you immediately away from the city. Whistler Village’s design was inspired by Switzerland’s famous alpine villages - Wengen and Interlaken, and exploring on foot was easy. This design was intentional, to encourage meandering, exploration and surprise. Coupled with the magnificent views of Blackcomb and Whistler Mountains, strolling in Whistler Village is a chill and relaxing experience.

We stayed at The Listel Hotel, and our room had views of Rainbow Mountain. We love that they offer both Still and Sparkling Whistler Water on the tap for free! We highly recommend staying at The Listler Hotel. Do note that hotel (basement) parking is chargeable at CAD$27, and the hotel room rate excludes this. There are some public parking lots that are cheaper (CAD$8 - $14) if you are alright with the 10-15mins walk to the hotel. Day Lots 1 to 5 has free parking from 5pm onwards.

When exploring the Olympic Village, make sure to take to check out Purebread🥐. It is one of the best bakeries we have ever tried. Their selection of bakes was a feast for the eyes, everything looks so good, and they taste really good too. A Whistler gem!

#2 Sea-to-Sky Highway

The Sea-to-Sky Highway (Highway 99) is another scenic drive we were looking forward to doing. This famous highway hugs the coast along Howe Sound, and gives you changing views of mountain ranges and forests. The direction from Whistler to Vancouver (southbound from sky to sea) made it easy for stops along the viewpoints peppered along the highway. It would have been harder to stop at these viewpoints in the northbound direction as it would require cutting across lanes (a big nono).

After spending a week in the Canadian Rockies, we were starting to feel “mountain-fatigue”. The sights, while magnificent, were beginning to look the same. Driving along this Highway meant we were moving from landscapes to cityscapes.

There are so many viewpoints, sights and hikes we could have done along the Sea-to-Sky Highway. But we focused on only a couple of easy to do sites (which are kids and elderly friendly too!). Here are 2 that you shouldn’t miss:

Brandywine Falls - Brandywine Falls is a spectacular 70m high waterfall. Only ~500m from the parking lot, a well-paved path led us to a large viewing platform where we could also see Daisy Lake and the surrounding mountains. We saw pictures of people at the bottom of the falls. Apparently, there is an off-trail consisting of steep slopes and ropes for climbing down. Climbing down is discouraged as it was deemed dangerous. Also, if you are tempted to do the Swim Lake trail, don’t, there isn’t much to the lake.

Tantalus Lookout - The snow-capped mountains on the west side of the Squamish River are called the Tantalus Range. And the best place for this spectacular view of Tantalus is just off the highway while driving southbound. Super convenient, and a great place for a stop.

We have included in our map other places we couldn’t go as we didn’t have enough time. But you might want to do them. Check out our map, and let us know your experience visiting these sights on the Sea-to-Sky Highway.

#3 McArthurGlen Designer Outlet Vancouver

We drove across Lions Gate Bridge as we entered Stanley Park towards Downtown Vancouver, the experience kinda feels similar to crossing the Golden Gate Bridge. 😂

We checked in to Century Plaza Hotel, and drove to Chickpea for a late vegan lunch. The servings were huge! Highly recommended if you want to have some vegan food. Roadside parking was alright, and we paid for parking online using our phone browser.

After lunch, we drove to McArthurGlen Designer Outlet Vancouver (free parking) for some outlet shopping! Despite the higher taxes, the prices seemed to be slightly better than the ones we saw at Niagara. Perhaps it was due to discounts offered then.

✈Fun Fact: You can catch all kinds of planes coming in really low as they approach the runway for landing.

Finally, we returned to our rented car at Vancouver Airport before taking the Canada Line back to Downtown Vancouver. You can use contactless payment for public transport fares. You still have 90 minutes to make your transfer across bus, SeaBus and SkyTrain services.

💡Tip: Trips on the Canada Line between Canada Line Vancouver Airport and Templeton Station (where McArthurGlen is) are free of charge.

We usually add our Wise or Revolut virtual cards to our mobile wallets and tap away. There are many reasons why we prefer Wise and Revolut:

1. “Disposable” Virtual Cards - This adds an additional security when we travel. And we can easily create a virtual for free, and “dispose” it by deleting it at the end of our trip. Merchants who collect info of your card, cannot charge to the card. You can also easily add Wise virtual cards to Apple Wallet or Google Pay.

2. Better Fees & Rates - Credit cards are notorious for their poor FX rates and additional fees (some up to 3.25%). And these costs add up! Imagine charging your credit card for a bag that costs $3,000, that is $97.50 in fees! We could have a meal at a Michelin Star restaurant! The actualy FX exchange rate that credit card companies use are also poorer in comparison.

3. Transaction History - This is the fun part. Using Wise, every transaction is recorded in the app and you can also upload a copy of the receipt for record keeping. This can help you archive our spending and review them post-trip. That was how we managed to quickly tabulate our total spend for this trip!

4. ATM withdrawal for Cash - Like credit cards, you get a physical card, and you use it at the ATM to withdraw cash. Wise allows for free cash withdrawals, within respective location limits. However, the ATM bank may charge a convenience fee. This came in handy when we ran out of cash at HK BBQ Master that only accepts cash. 😓

5. Convert Currency Conveniently - With just a few taps, we could convert to any foreign currency 24/7 when we feel the rates are attractive. Lock-in the good rates and store it in your Wise account for it to be automatically deducted when you pay using foreign currency.

Back to shopping, Downtown Vancouver has plenty of brand stores and shopping centres. Some stores may close as early as 7pm, so check their opening hours and plan accordingly. We also went to CF Richmond Centre while visiting Vancouver’s “Asia Town”. If you are keen to explore some Canadian brands, here are some familiar ones:

1. Aldo (has a store at McArthurGlen)

2. Herschel Supply Co (has a store at McArthurGlen)

3. La Senza

4. The Ordinary

5. Lululemon

#4 Cycling to Stanley Park, Gastown, Waterfront, Granville Island

This is the one activity we feel everyone should and can do to explore Downtown Vancouver. Vancouver’s roads and paths are bike-friendly. There are clearly demarcated cycling lanes, and for roads where there are no such lanes, drivers share the road with cyclists. Do practise safe-cycling habits, and wear your helmet too!

There is a place to rent a bike walking distance from our hotel. Learning from our Banff’s experience, we rented e-bikes this time. We don’t want to over exert on roads for the slopes and “use more effort” enjoying Vancouver sights. 😂

There is plenty to explore, daylight is aplenty with sunset at 8+PM, and we had to return the bike before closing time (8PM). Let’s go!

We have drawn the cycling routes we took in our Vancouver & Whistler Map - Route A, B, and C. We tried our best to stick to cycling lanes, and there were plenty of places to park our bikes at each stop.

Route A goes around Stanley Park. Take note that cycling around Stanley Park is only done in one direction - anti-clockwise. Begin at Second Beach, go right towards Lost Lagoon, and follow the cycling path. The path is mostly flat, with some narrow parts. We just stopped whenever we saw something interesting.

After exploring Stanley Park, we cycled to Kingyo for japanese food (highly recommend their lunch set), and cycled to Granville Island.

Route B goes from Granville Island to the Waterfront. Granville Island has plenty of bicycle stands where you can park and lock your bike. Granville Public Market has many things to see and try. Don’t miss Lee’s Donuts. Their honey-dipped donut tastes like a healthy (and still sweet) version of Krispy Kremes’ original glazed. Good place for people watch.

The Waterfront is a nice place to just chill and watch the seaplanes fly and land in the water. You can park your bike, grab a coffee and people watch too!

Route C was our attempt to cycle along the “perimeter” of Downtown Vancouver. We visited the only remaining steam clock in Canada - Gastown Steam Clock. We covered Chinatown, wanted to visit Dr Sun Yat-Sen Garden, but it was closed. And we want to see Vancouver’s beautiful waterfront sights. We cycled past many parks, buildings and yachts along False Creek. The sun was out, air was breezy, the weather was perfect to be outdoors, and many people were out enjoying too!

idle.tradventures

View more on Instagram

Finally we ended right back where we started and returned our e-bikes. Overall, the e-bikes made exploring Vancouver easy and fun. There are only pedal-assist e-bikes available for rent, so we had to do some work. You could put your assist setting to “high” and breeze through Vancouver.😉

This marks the end of our Canada Trip, and Canada exceeded our expectations. Shortly after our trip, SingaporeAir has stopped direct flights from SIN-YVR, and Air Canada will be stepping in to fill up this void in Apr 2024. Let us know if you like a copy of our full Vancouver Itinerary then.

We will definitely be going back to explore Canada. Maybe rent an RV and catch the Northern Lights for a budget-friendly tradventure!