Let’s face it – Vancouver is the best place to be during the summer months. A Vancouver staycation is a fun way to explore the city and surrounding areas while keeping the budget down.
While I fully support wanting to escape the city to go to far-flung locals or simply wanting to get some of that vitamin D that we all want and need by going to sunny places like Mexico, I think staying in and near Vancouver during summer is a great idea.
You can fill your summer calendar with fun, cheap or free activities to do every day of the
Design your Summer Inspiration
Need some inspiration on what it means to design your summer or ideas on how to do this for yourself? Gretchen Rubin and her sister Elizabeth Craft have been sharing their insights around designing your summer (or any other season) on their podcast Happier with Gretchen Rubin. Listen to the below podcast episodes:
Design your Summer (2016)
Design your summer (again) 2019
Here are a few of my Intentions and Goals for the Summer :
- Summer daily haikus
- Vancouver staycation
- Farmer’s markets
- Learn about plants and trees —>foraging tour, forest walks
- Swim in lakes 5x
- Learn how to ride a bike
- 30 minute lunch breaks= Instagram connection
- Make plans to meet up with 2 new people
- Read 10 books
- Spend time with mom and brother while they are visiting
You may be wondering: “where do I go to find out what to do in Vancouver?” Here is a list of a few places where I regularly go to check out what events, festivals, lectures, and other things are going on around the city:
Resources for Finding Events & Things to do for your Vancouver Staycation
The Facebook Events tab is the place to go to find out what your friends are getting up to and what’s going on in your community. You can filter the results by date or theme (food, art, film, networking. . .)
The A to Z Glossary of Vancouver Places and Events will give you so many ideas (300 of them to be exact) of places to check out and things to do in Vancouver this summer (and throughout the year).
I had no idea there were SO many festivals going on around the Metro Vancouver area! These festivals and generally free to attend, encourage public transit use (parking is often very limited), and are great ways to connect with your community over similar interests.
Eventbrite may be familiar to you as a site where you can purchase tickets to events you’re attending. They also have free events listed (you will need to register for these on Eventbrite). You can search by date or category of interest.
Miss 604 is a local blog that is an institution in the city. Subscribe to the newsletter for emails with all the upcoming events going on over the weekend and in the following month.
Your local library branch has an events calendar with events and regular activities for the whole family. There are book clubs to attend at your local library as well!
Check your municipality’s events calendar as well. Or, pick a few nearby municipalities that you will attend events in this summer. For me, I check all three municipalities on the North Shore, Burnaby, and Vancouver.
Google has a listing of events going on in Vancouver.
In addition to finding things to do for my staycation, I have put together a list of restaurants and cafes that I want to check out, too. I go to Google Maps and search “Vegetarian restaurants” and “search this area” to find places that I’ve never been before. I use this to find bookstores to browse through, art galleries to wander around in, and other things of interest to me that I didn’t know existed.
Look out for the hashtag #vancouverstaycation on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. I’ll be posting throughout the summer. You can see what other people are getting up to in Vancouver as well for more ideas.
When planning your Vancouver staycation, think about events, festivals, museums, galleries, talks, beaches, parks, restaurants/cafes that you have been meaning to check out – and design your summer so that you can have fun while staying on a budget!
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