Posts by: WantsToTravelMore

You can’t really use the words ambience and décor at Sophie’s Cosmic Café. The challenge is that it’s more a diner than a restaurant. There are the round twirly stools in front of the milkshake machine giving a soda fountain feel. They is outside seating and the rest are booths and tables. The interior does not have a corner where kitschy memorabilia does not bump into what might be considered art. The signed Warhol print on the east wall somehow goes well with the aging Kermit the Frog doll hanging from a tin child’s ride ’em airplane. If you are […]

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Kitsilano Beach Park (AKA Kits Beach) is a spectacular place to spend a day when visiting Vancouver. It’s particularly amazing when you land on a sunny warm summer day. My favourite reasons to hang out there are: The Scenery While sitting on Kits Beach and looking west you can, on a clear day, see the mountain ranges of Vancouver Island. In August the sunset sets right where the North Shore mountains touches the water and is breathtaking. It’s no wonder they built the restaurant above the concession stand so as to get a better view. If you head north along […]

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The Elbow Room Cafe is a Vancouver landmark that I’ve wanted to go to but never found the time to be on Davie Street at breakfast or lunch time. The restaurant follows the diner format and style with all-day breakfast and quite the array of sandwiches and burgers. The shtick for the place is mild abuse toward patrons. The first two rules are if you want more coffee or water, go get it yourself. Which is kind of innovative in a way — how many times have you wanted the server to come with more coffee and you could never […]

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In a rare bit of indulgence, my wife and I went out to dinner. Significant anniversary aside, it was a rare confluence of conditions that allowed us to enjoy our own neighbourhood of Kitsilano. Abigail’s Party is on Yew Street only a couple of blocks from Kits Beach Park. It’s a great spot to take a sweetheart because on a nice evening you can go for a walk and enjoy the glorious view from Kits Beach. Furthermore, on warmer evenings there’s a great amount of people watching you can do. Those who enjoy Kits Beach are wonderfully varied and colourful. […]

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VanDusen Botanical Gardens is located at Oak Street and 37th Avenue in Vancouver.  During spring, summer and fall, the gardens have terrific collection of plants, trees and more.  In the winter, they put on a lovely Festival of Lights.  It’s hugely popular and my wife’s choir was singing at the event and it was a first time for me and my children. It literally felt like every single plant, tree or shrub that could handle having a light on it, had a light on it.  The Autumn this year in Vancouver has been quite wet since mid-October and we lucked […]

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It has been many years since going to Whistler.  My family doesn’t ski or snowboard and thus there has been a low desire to take effort to travel from Vancouver to Whistler.  When the 2010 Winter Olympics were announced and the subsequent Highway 99 (Sea-to-Sky) upgrade was started, many of us Vancouver types stayed off the road.  For years. Recently during a weekend getaway with my kids in Squamish, I thought, what the heck.  It’s summer, the scenery will be amazing and Whistler is only an hour away. And when I say an hour, I mean it literally.  From the […]

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Obviously if you’re like me and have not been to Squamish since before the 2010 Winter Olympics, things have changed. A lot. But for those of you looking for more background, Squamish is the first real town north of Vancouver and West Vancouver. You truly feel past the point of sane commuting. (I hear stories of people doing Squamish-Vancouver commutes, but this induces the same scepticism that I have when I hear stories of people bending spoons with their mind powers.) The Sea-to-Sky Highway (#99) is well named as the scenery up to Squamish is stunning as you wind your […]

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Shannon Falls Provincial Park is a favourite spot of mine in BC because it allows you to enjoy the stunning scenery without much effort.  Of course old aphorisms stating the journey is more important than the destination were composed by people who never sat beside a chain smoker in withdrawal on a 12 hour flight from London to Cape Town or hiked up a BC mountain with bad knees. Regardless, Shannon Falls is 335 m (1105 ft.) of wonder.  When you pull into the parking lot, if it’s a beautiful day, it will likely be full.  There was no signage […]

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I had a free afternoon on a trip to Victoria BC and I was in possession of a restless four-year-old.  The four walls of the hotel room were not conducive to joy and gladness so we made our way to Beacon Hill Park. Beacon Hill Park is located in downtown Victoria and is bordered by Douglas Street to the west and Cook St to the east.  It ends at Dallas Road, but if you cross the road, you will see some amazing ocean scenery. There’s a perfectly fine playground in Beacon Hill Park where my child could climb and play […]

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If you are in Sooke and only have time for one scenic walk, visit Whiffin Spit Park. To find Whiffin Spit, you must head down Whiffen Spit Road, which heads south of the main road (Highway 14). Follow the signs to Whiffin Spit or Sooke Harbour House, both of which are found at the end of Whiffin Spit Road. There is a small parking lot that I imagine during high season is hard to find space in. You may need to find street parking and walk in. According to the signs, Whiffin Spit is named for a clerk on the […]

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