We drove back to Victoria, dropped off our rental car and took the ferry to Vancouver. It is super expensive to take a rental car off the island so once we got into Vancouver, we rented a different car to drive around in.
We stayed at the Burrard hotel downtown. This hotel has some pretty witty marketing and was perfect for what we were looking for.
*Disclaimer* My family is from Vancouver so this part of the itinery is not the be all and end all of Vancouver. With COVID-19, some of the things that we wanted to do, we were unable to.
The next day we went to Granville Island to do some shopping and grabbed some Donuts. Then we did a hike in Lynn Valley.
We also drove along North Vancouver to eat some supper and get some views of the water.
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Pacific Rim Park is great! When the most beautiful ocean landscapes collide with the most beautiful mountain and Forrest landscapes you get the best of both Worlds, out of the 25 National Parks we’ve been to this is our favorite so far!
@claribo - that sounds incredible! We would love to go to Seattle and Portland once this pandemic ends! We definitely rented a car since we flew into Victoria. If you are planning on leaving the island, we would recommend closing your rental on the island and then taking the ferry and then re-renting a new vehicle. There are a couple of reasons we would recommend this. The first is that when you plan to take the rental off the island, the rental car company charge a significant increase in price. The second is that the ticket to take a car onto the ferry can be a pretty expensive cost in itself compared to just being a person ticket. If you are planning a camper van, there are some pretty amazing hiking you can get into. We didn't go far into the woods but my brother was able to see some incredible huge trees that you can't see just from the road. We did do a couple of hikes closer to Coombs which wouldn't need a camper van for. Hope that helps!
Super excited. just booked my return flight to Vancouver for next year, 18 whole days, thinking Vancouver, vancouver island, Seattle and Portland. Would love to hear ur experiences of transport, did you hire the car... been thinking of hiring a camper van? Was it easy to get out of the city, I would love to do some hiking.