Vancouver · Backpacking
ON A BUDGET
A compact, walkable city with a good transit card, real hostels and free mountains behind it.
Downtown and the West End
Hostels cluster along Granville, Thurlow and around Gastown, all within walking distance of the seawall, the bars and the SkyTrain. Noisy on Granville, calmer in the West End.
What a day costs
Roughly CAD 110–180 a day, about US$80–130: dorm bed CAD 45–70, food CAD 35–55, and a day transit pass around CAD 12.
Compass Card and the SeaBus
One tap card covers buses, SkyTrain and the SeaBus across to North Vancouver on a normal fare. Leaving the airport by Canada Line adds a surcharge; arriving does not.
Free by day
The Stanley Park seawall, the Lynn Canyon suspension bridge — free, unlike its more famous rival — and Kitsilano Beach at sunset all cost nothing.
Where travellers meet
English Bay's log-strewn beach at sunset, the Gastown pubs afterwards, and the free walking tours that muster on the art gallery steps most mornings.