Travel

Over the years, our families and friends have come to visit us. Every time they come, we tailor the places we want to take them depending on the time of year, duration of their stay etc. This page serves as a compilation of all those trips and a reference for us in the future days. Feel free to use them, comments are welcome!

Camping

• Bear Creek Provincial Park: Flush Toilets, showers, fancy place. Location is beside Okanagen Lake. Perfect in the summer!
• Monck Provincial Park: Set on a lake with more than 130 campsites on a slope, its in a hot, dry place and thus offers are reprieve from cool/cold rainy Vancouver! Perfect at the beginning or end of camping season. Has a nice day use area and at least two trails. Campsites are private even though the trees are thin. Get supplies from Merritt. The drive from Merritt city center to the campsite is beautiful with rolling hills, Green fields and excellent views. Campsite was not noisy even with so many people around. Prep: Get some water-sports equipment, clothesline (if needed) and a hammock. Has water, flush toilets.
• Niskonlith Lake Provincial Park: Four hours from Vancouver, rustic camping on a beautiful and quiet lake on the top of a hill. The views beginning from Highway 1 to the Lake are breathtaking. Bring your own water, no online reservations. BC Parks site: http://bcparks.ca/explore/parkpgs/niskonlith/ [Update July 2020] All sites were full. Perhaps because it was a Friday. Go very early or not at all. Site is still non-reservable, the lake is as beautiful as ever.
• Overflow Campground in Jasper: The place to go when you don’t have reservations in Jasper! Has water, pit toilets. Mosquitoes in the evening but you eat and run into the tent if you arrive at a time when no campfires are allowed. Train noise at night
• Fintry Provincial Park in Kelowna is a hot place (amazing) on Lake Kelowna. Flush toilets, hots showers, the huge lake to swim, a fall to hike up and large tracts of land to walk. You can easily spend three nights there.

Spectacular hikes

• The Garibalidi Region is one a kind! Walk up to the Garibladi lake and back (6 hours). Walk to the Black Tusk and back in a day (8 hours). Or if you are really crazy, go to Panorama Ridge via the lake in one day (12 hours). A better and peaceful and enjoyable way is to hike upto the Lake one day, camp and then do the Tusk and the Ridge on separate days. This is one place that you can go every year and still feel enthralled and wanting to go there again.

Trips and hikes

• Bowen Island: A respite, away from city, ride the ferry
• Harrison Beach: Beachwalk, drive up West via the muddy road for an offroad ride.
• Victoria: Il Covo Trattoria
• Vancouver Jasper: Drive in one day, bike and hike in Jasper a few days, drive back in one day
• Grouse Mountain: Ground Grind is the straight up hike. Can be used for checking your fitness :P. But it might not be fun when you are with a group of friends and want to chat along the way and BCMC trail is the one you choose in that case. Meandering, slower than the Grind, you can hike up very slowly while chatting with folks who’re not used to hiking difficult terrain.

Walks

• Riverfront Board Walk in New Westminster is a path along the Fraser River that is most gorgeous during sunset.
• Tons of walks around Pitt River Boat Launch Area. Walk from the Grant Narrows Park to Swan Dike Trail to see the beautiful Pitt Lake one one side and the Pitt-Addington Marsh on the other in any weather.
• Roberts Bank in Delta is a great place to do long walks. You can hear birds chirping all along, which is not very usual if you live in Vancouver. The view is amazing, the air is fresh and your walk turns into some sort of a meditation. Very refreshing. There is enough banks to allow you to walk from anywhere from one to four hours.
• Campbell Valley Regional Park in Langley is a great place to walk especially in summer. The jungle is cool and perfect for walks. You can choose short loops or long and winding ones. Best part is you can eat berries all along the way.

Walk with Kids

• Capilano Hatchery in North Van is a place where kids can look at Salmon for hours. Great if you have small kids. Don’t miss to go to the Cleveland dam and see the view of the lake formed by it on Capilano River.

Vancouver is terribly beautiful! :)