Our trip to Vancouver with kids started with Les Misérables and snow, then grew into hockey, suspension bridges, cherry blossoms, giant pancakes, Asian markets, Michelin-starred food, Ukrainian pastries, and one of our favorite family trips in recent memory.

Things to do in Vancouver with Kids

We originally chose Vancouver for my wife’s birthday. I promised her tickets to Les Misérables, Vancouver was one of the closest and least expensive places to see the full production, and it gave us a fine excuse to drag the kids north for some skiing and snowboarding.

Video coming soon!>>>

Turns out, there are a LOT of fun things to do in Vancouver with kids.

Watch a Vancouver Canucks Hockey Game at Rogers Arena

One of the best things we did was take the kids to a Vancouver Canucks game at Rogers Arena.

I’ve had some pretty memorable hockey experiences. My first NHL game was an Anaheim Ducks game where we sat right against the glass. A fight broke out directly in front of us, blood ended up smeared across the glass, and teenage me thought it was the greatest thing ever.

About ten years later, I watched a game from a box with a good friend. Food, drinks, comfortable seats, no fighting strangers for an armrest. Very different experience.

This time we had the kids, and they loved it. We made a point of finding an Airbnb close to Rogers Arena and BC Place, which made game night much easier. We walked there, watched the Canucks, then walked home afterward.

Hockey is so much better in person. The speed is nuts, the hits are huge, and it’s hard to appreciate how skilled these guys are until you see them flying around the ice from a few rows away. The Canucks lost, but nobody cared (at least we didn’t.) It was a great night.

Explore T&T Supermarket in Chinatown

We checked out T&T Supermarket in Chinatown and ended up spending way more time there than expected.

We’ve got some great Asian markets in Hawaii, but this place was on another level. Seafood, snacks, drinks, noodles, sauces, baked goods, produce, prepared food, frozen food, all manner of living delicacies, and plenty of things we couldn’t identify.

Some looked delicious. A few we wish we could forget. I(‘ve tried preserved duck eggs before. I love duck, and I love eggs, but it left in a strange place…

The kids had a blast walking the aisles and picking out things they’d never seen before. Grocery stores are an easy way to see a different side of a city, especially when everyone gets to choose a strange snack.

Walk Across the Capilano Suspension Bridge

OK, this may have been the best part of the trip. Capilano Suspension Bridge Park was awesome!

The main bridge hangs high over a forested canyon and bounces just enough to make things slightly terrifying. The kids loved crossing it, then loved the treehouse walkways even more.

You move between platforms and bridges high in the trees, with great views of the forest below. We wandered around, crossed everything we could, ate little pancakes, grabbed snacks, and stayed longer than we planned.

This is one of those Vancouver attractions that works for both kids and adults. A truly beautiful place above the raging waters.

Visit the Vancouver Aquarium

We’re aquarium people. Living on Maui, we love the Maui Ocean Center, so we were curious how the Vancouver Aquarium would compare. It was BIG.

We moved through room after room filled with fish, marine animals, tanks, beautiful exhibits, strange creatures, and sea lions and sea otters that made the kids stop and press their faces against the glass.

Both aquariums have a strong sense of place, giving visitors a closer look at the animals and marine environments found around their respective regions. The Vancouver Aquarium gave us plenty to explore, and it worked really well on a family day in the city.

Aquariums are pretty much foolproof with our kids. Animals, science, giant tanks, weird creatures, dark rooms, plenty of space to roam. Done.

See Vancouver’s Cherry Blossoms

We happened to visit while the cherry blossoms were going off. I didn’t know I cared much about cherry blossoms until we went to Japan. They take those trees seriously there, and apparently we came home converted.

We’re disciples now.

Vancouver had pink blossoms everywhere, and we kept stopping to take photos as we walked around the city. If you’re there during bloom season, leave some time to wander.

See a Show at Queen Elizabeth Theatre

Actually, as much as we loved the Capilano treehouse walkways, this was the best part.

Les Misérables was the reason we went to Vancouver in the first place.

For my wife’s birthday, I told her I’d get her tickets to a full professional production of Les Mis. We looked through the options, and Vancouver checked every box. It was one of the closest choices from Hawaii, costs were reasonable compared with several other cities, and Canada gave us a perfect excuse to tack on skiing and snowboarding. Sold.

The show was at Queen Elizabeth Theatre in downtown Vancouver, and we decided that flying all the way to Canada warranted good seats. So we splurged.

This was our kids’ first really big theater production, and I wasn’t totally sure how they’d handle it. Les Misérables isn’t exactly light children’s entertainment. You’ve got poverty, revolution, death, unrequited love, barricades, misery, and a whole lot of singing.

They LOVED it!

We’ve seen the show quite a few times over the years, and this production was spectacular. It may have been the best version we’ve seen. One of the coolest parts of traveling with kids is introducing them to something you love, then seeing that little click when they start loving it too!

Walk Through Gastown and See the Steam Clock

We didn’t make a special trip for the Gastown Steam Clock, but we happened to walk past it while eating, shopping, and wandering through the neighborhood. It whistles, steam comes out, and a crowd gathers every time it does its thing.

The kids didn’t really understand why so many adults were standing around staring at a clock, but they liked it. But once we explained how it functioned, I heard a few oos and ahhs.

Add Skiing or Snowboarding to Your Vancouver Family Trip

One of the best parts about visiting Vancouver in winter is getting city time and mountain time on the same trip. We chose Big White Ski Resort, and it blew our minds.

Our Hawaii kids got buried in more snow than they normally see in several lifetimes. We skied, snowboarded, played around, froze ourselves, warmed back up, then did it all again. Big White worked incredibly well for our family and is on par with Niseko.

Whistler is another obvious choice from Vancouver, yet we were thrilled with our time at Big White. I’ve done Whislter with a buddy, and the mountains are INSANE! That said, it was expensive and crowded. Watch the video below for our time at Big White:

 

Let’s just say that combining a few days in Vancouver with a few days on a Canadian mountain made this trip feel like two completely different vacations.

Best Restaurants in Vancouver

Food plays a pretty major role in our trips. I tend to travel with my stomach leading the way.

Some Vancouver restaurants we booked long before we arrived. Others were complete accidents. Funny how often the accidents end up being favorites.

Machete Ancestral Mexican Food

One of the best meals we had was at Machete Ancestral Mexican Food at 1007 Main Street.

We stumbled onto it, which made it even better. The food is heavily focused on corn, and it felt very different from the Mexican food we usually eat back home. The kids loved the cacao drinks and a massive machete with blue corn. The huaraches were great, thick corn bases loaded with toppings and plenty of flavor.

We loved the guaca-toston plantains and the enfrijoladas. This was one of those meals where everyone took a few bites, looked around the table, and knew we’d found a good one.

Jam Cafe Vancouver

Jam Cafe was packed, and we had to wait.

Waiting for breakfast with hungry kids is always a gamble, but this one paid off. The food was huge and rich. I had a Benedict with fried chicken, and the kids got giant cinnamon swirl pancakes.

Everyone left happy and very full. If you’re heading to Jam Cafe with kids, go early and show up hungry.

St. Lawrence

St. Lawrence was the restaurant booking I was most excited about. It has a Michelin star, and I’m the kind of person who will plan an entire day around dinner.

The food was great. The kids were not.

Our kids are usually excellent travelers. They’ve handled long flights, unfamiliar food, weird schedules, strange beds, and all kinds of travel nonsense without much trouble. Something was off this day. They were pissy, getting on each other’s nerves, and getting on ours.

So there we were, eating a Michelin-starred meal while trying to keep two little monsters from ruining dinner. The salmon was incredible, and the foie de canard mousse was wild.

The food was excellent. The experience was slightly less excellent. That’s traveling with kids. Someday when they’re adults with kids of their own, I expect a massive apology for this one.

Alimentaria Mexicana and Granville Island

Someone told us to check out Granville Island for food and shopping, and they were right.

The area has an old industrial feel, with markets, food stalls, small shops, artists, and music tucked into the buildings under the bridges. We first went late and ate at Alimentaria Mexicana, which was great, but most of the shops were closing.

So we came back the next day.

That worked much better. We shopped, listened to music, walked through the market, and ate a ridiculous amount of food. Fresh pasta, seafood, baked goods, snacks, desserts, prepared meals, there was plenty to choose from.

Everyone picked something different, then everyone stole bites from everyone else. That’s a pretty good way to eat with kids.

Another meal we planned ahead was Chambar, right near Jam Cafe on Beatty Street.

Chambar has a Belgian influence, and the mussels were fantastic. Big bowls of them, loaded with flavor, begging for bread or fries to mop up whatever was left at the bottom. We had some excellent meat dishes too, and this was one of those dinners where we kept reaching across the table to try whatever everyone else ordered.

The restaurant itself is gorgeous, with brick, warm lighting, a great bar, and the kind of dining room that makes dinner feel like an occasion without getting painfully formal. It was another one of our planned Vancouver meals that absolutely paid off. I’m a sucker for confit duck leg.

If your kids are comfortable in nicer restaurants and willing to branch out a bit, Chambar is a great family dinner in downtown Vancouver, especially if somebody at the table loves mussels.

Kozak Ukrainian Restaurant

Kozak Ukrainian Restaurant wasn’t planned, and it ended up being one of our favorite meals.

The food was excellent, and the pastries alone are worth going for. We ordered a bunch of things, shared everything, then kept ordering more. Borsch with beef, holubtsi cabbage rolls, and the Varenyky handmade pierogies were amazing!

Earlier in the trip, we’d had an interesting conversation with a Ukrainian Uber driver about the war and his own views on what was happening back home. Then our son walked into the Kozak bathroom and discovered Putin’s face inside the urinals.  I’ll leave the international politics to someone else.

Our son was mainly thrilled that he got to pee on Putin’s face. Food, pastries, history, and bathroom humor. That’s traveling with kids!