Hello all, I will be visiting Vancouver for 3 days and two nights at the end of March. Since I have limited time, I was hoping you could give me some suggestions to make sure that I hit all of the best areas of town before leaving. I'm an urban guy and a history guy, so point me in the right direction.

The photos I have seen on here are amazing and I am very excited to be visiting. Thanks!

Hello all, I will be visiting Vancouver for 3 days and two nights at the end of March. Since I have limited time, I was hoping you could give me some suggestions to make sure that I hit all of the best areas of town before leaving. I'm an urban guy and a history guy, so point me in the right direction.

The photos I have seen on here are amazing and I am very excited to be visiting. Thanks!

Hummm - Urban and history

Walk around the city - is very easy city to walk in.

Yaletown - historic and new, upscale and lowscale.

Gastown - a little touristy

Chinatown - neat

Walk along Robson, down Denman for urban shopping streets - cut through the side streets to view the West End

The seawall is worth the walk around - follow it around False Creek to Granville Island

Great walking, shopping streets
- Broadway
- Commercial Drive
- Main street
- 4th Avenue

Skytrain ride out to New Westminster - take Millenium Line for a tour out and back via both lines.

SeaBus to North Vancouve, Lonsdale Quay and North Van

Maritime Museum in Kitsilano is full of historical stuff.
UBC for a full mix of nature and history.
Steveston Village in Richmond

My absolute favourite is a walk in New Westminster between Royal Ave to 6th Ave, Queens Park to 5th St. Absolutely beautiful old heritage houses and one brand new heritage style home built by five time Stanley Cup winner Bill Ranford.

If the cherry blossoms are still out by mid March most of the city will beautiful around that time.

I had a good time when I visited the Vancouver Aquarium. They have some beluga whales there - pretty cool.

There is alot of info on my Best Breweries/Pubs thread about stuff to do too.

Maritime Museum in Kitsilano is full of historical stuff.
UBC for a full mix of nature and history.
Steveston Village in Richmond

My absolute favourite is a walk in New Westminster between Royal Ave to 6th Ave, Queens Park to 5th St. Absolutely beautiful old heritage houses and one brand new heritage style home built by five time Stanley Cup winner Bill Ranford.

If the cherry blossoms are still out by mid March most of the city will beautiful around that time.

Wow! Do you mean the one on the corner, near the park?...am a big Bill Ranford fan (by the way, i believe he is only a 2 time Stanley cup winner...in 1988, and 1990).

Wow! Do you mean the one on the corner, near the park?...am a big Bill Ranford fan (by the way, i believe he is only a 2 time Stanley cup winner...in 1988, and 1990).

2 sorry! Andy Moog had the other 3. Bill Ranford and Craig Simpson are my childhood heroes. Ranford was actually at my high school graduation in 2001 at NWSS. But yea he bought two lots on 5th Ave and 1st St and built that big house there. I don't know if he still owns it or not but he does hold New Westminster dear to his heart.

Not much in the way of historical buildings - Vancouver's a pretty young city. As mentioned - Gastown, Yaletown and Chinatown.
The Vancouver Museum (same place as the planetarium) would have historical displays. It's walking distance from Granville Island along the seawall (head west from Granville Island) and you'll see the white pointed roofed building across a park - that's the planetarium and museum. To get to Granville Island (on the south side of False Creek), you can take one of the aquabuses from the seawall on the north side of False Creek. There's a dock at the south foot of Davie Street near Yaletown and one at the south foot of Hornby Street (directly across from Granville Island further west along the seawall if you walk west along the seawall from Yaletown to see the sights). You'll see the aquabuses puttering around the creek, so you just have to look out to see where they dock.

i haven't checked it recently but at burrard sky train station you can rent a pair of headphones that tells you things that you are passing on the route - i don't know if its year round or just summer but worth checking out - riding skytrain is a great way to see a lot

check out coal harbour and the seawall into stanley park

lost lagoon, is a nice short cut to english bay

I thought it was Waterfront station that u can do the SkyTour...

Anyway can't forget Granville Island =D experience local attractions and history. From Granville Island you can go to many other attraction easily (like officedweller said) the Vancouver Museum, downtown, Chinatown via sea wall, Yaletown, THE SEA WALL ITSELF IS AN ATTRACTION, and if you are really curious why there are so many cranes, you can walk on the sea wall to view the future olympic village (and the seawall for that area is complete).

http://www.*******************/north-america/canada/images/s/canada-granville-island.jpg
Granville Island - Source: Destination360

http://www.whyvancouver.com/images/Vancouver-granville-island.jpg
Granville Island - Source: Why Vancouver?

Google Maps Link (with Granville Island and a view of other attractions nearby)
http://local.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Granville+Island,+Vancouver,+BC&sll=39.300299,-103.447266&sspn=31.603423,59.765625&ie=UTF8&ll=49.277885,-123.132706&spn=0.02615,0.086517&t=h&z=14&iwloc=addr

To get to Granville Island you can take AquaBus, walk via Seawall or Granville Street Bridge, 50 - False Creek South (Bus), 98 B-Line (5th avenue then walk south), etc.

Thanks everybody!

I highly recommend taking SkyTrain, you really see a lot of Metro Vancouver.

Granville Island and Stanley Park (english bay, the seawall) are the two biggies for sure.

robson street for shopping, granville street and gastown are always happening.

chinatown's not that great. and it's within the downtown east side which is littered with crackheads and it's rather dirty, you might want to miss it.

main street/west 4th/commercial are good streets to visit outside the downtown peninsula.

hope the weather's nice!

i would agree that chinatown is worth skipping but not because it's not interesting. I just think that a city like Vancouver no longer needs to token-ize the Chinese population here. If you do find it interesting that asians/chinese are soo well represented in our awesome city, you'd do well just mingling like a non-tourist in richmond, east Vancouver, and burnaby - it'd be a bit of a culture shock that's worth experiencing.

If you have time, go to Richmond and see the amazing amount of chinese businesses there. It's actually scary to see that you basically only need to know chinese to get around in Richmond these days.

Richmond is the modern Chinatown =)

The end of March should be a good time to visit Vancouver if you don't mind the rain. Ideally, July and August are the best months to visit as the chances of rain are much lower. You can find about any kind of cuisine here, especially that from the Far East. If being outdoors is your thing, I highly recommend Queen Elizabeth Park, or better yet, a drive up one of the nearby North Shore mountains so you can view the entire metropolitan area from a scenic rest stop located only 20 minutes from downtown.

Grouse Mountain on a clear day.