It’s not too late to head up to Vancouver and experience the Olympics in person. I initially intended to sit on my couch each night watching the events on tape-delay, content to breathe in the Olympic spirit and its environs vicariously through whatever NBC was willing to show me.
Luckily, though, my wife reminded me that never again would we have an opportunity to be just a short drive away from an event with such global significance. Why not just hop into the car Saturday morning and see it for ourselves?
With minimal planning, a little patience and flexibility, we had a great trip, and there’s one more weekend left. I can’t make any guarantees that the weather will be as beautiful as it was this past weekend, but I can share a handful of resources that we used to drive up and enjoy Vancouver’s downtown Olympic sites.
1) Use public transportation.
I started by finding a convenient SkyTrain park and ride with easy access from Highway 99.
The Bridgeport Station Park and Ride in Richmond was full, but we joined hundreds of other visitors parking on the surrounding streets.
The crowd of people lining up at the station initially seemed overwhelming, but we quickly realized that public transit staff and Olympic volunteers were helping to smooth out the ticket-buying process and controlling the amount of people allowed on the SkyTrain platform.
Tickets were only $2.50 Canadian (we could use our credit/debit card in the machine), and they provide unlimited use that day on any form of public transportation, including the SeaBus to North Vancouver, and the trolley to Granville Island.
2) Take advantage of free activities.
Downtown Vancouver is absolutely filled with free activities and thousands of people. Olympic Superstore or the GE Ice Plaza at British Columbia’s Robson Square Celebration site, where visitors can fly across two blocks and thousands of people on a zip-line suspended above an ice rink featuring everything from figure skaters to Olympic mascots.
Working your way northeast through downtown as the sun sets, you are treated to a feast of the senses. The last rays of sunlight reflect off of the cities buildings as neon marquees begin to light up the night.
Music as diverse as father and son on accordion and drums to teenage reggae rockers to old-time fiddlers to singer-songwriter guitarists crisscross through the streets intermingled with jugglers, dancers and clowns making balloon animals.
Following the crowd we reach the Olympic Torch floating out in the darkness behind the now infamous chain-link fence. They’ve now replaced a portion of the fence with plexi-glass to facilitate viewing and photographing.
3) Pack a lunch.
We spent very little money over the course of two days, packing sandwiches and leftover pasta from Friday night into our backpack and carrying them with us. When our one-day trip turned into two days, we stopped at a grocery store in the morning to buy a loaf of bread, goat cheese and salami to sustain us. This allowed us to enjoy our meals out in the sunshine in the cheery atmosphere of the Olympic visitors enjoying the weekend instead of crowding into a restaurant in downtown with long lines and expensive options.
4) Be flexible.
By 10 p.m. the streets were still filled with Olympic revelers, now more interested in partying as the night began and the families went home. Noticing the long lines forming outside the downtown SkyTrain stations closest to the torch, we instead decided to walk further a few more blocks, winding through Yaletown. There we happened upon a less crowded SkyTrain station and got to enjoy an area of downtown we had not enjoyed yet.
Expecting to just drive home to Everett Saturday night, a last minute email to friends Saturday ended up providing us with a place to stay that night in North Vancouver. The next morning we found an alternate route into downtown that proved easier and more scenic than the park and ride from Richmond.
Driving into the North Vancouver neighborhood of Lower Lonsdale, we found street parking about 5 blocks from the Lonsdale Quay departure hub, directly across the Burrard Inlet from downtown Vancouver. Here we used the SeaBus, a passenger ferry at the end of the SkyTrain system, to sail directly into downtown Vancouver. An absolutely beautiful trip with a view of the Vancouver skyline over the water with Stanley Park to the west.
When we left later that afternoon, we rode the SeaBus back to North Vancouver, got right onto Highway 1 through Vancouver all the way to exit 73 in Langley where you can go south on 13 across the border and down to Bellingham. We decided on that border crossing because a) we had such convenient access to Highway 1 from North Vancouver and b) on the way into Canada we went up Interstate 5 through the Peace Arch crossing where we waited about an hour and a half to cross the border (our longest wait of the trip). You can check out travel north on 539 across the Lynden border crossing, take Highway 1 west all of the way to North Vancouver where I’d find street parking and take the SeaBus across to downtown Vancouver.
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