A Digital Nomad Guide to Vancouver

Vancouver Visa

The type of visa you must apply for will change depending on the purpose of your visit and how long you want to stay in the country, your nationality, your academic training and your level of English.

The student visa costs 150 CAD and allows you to combine study with a job if your studies are for a university diploma or higher. You can work part-time (20 hours a week) during the school period or full-time during the holidays. If you have a partner, he or she may request a work permit, which will allow him/her to work while you study, as long as you are enrolled in a public college or university.

Another option is the Working Holiday visa that is used to study and work in Canada for one year. For this visa you must be between 18 and 35 years old and have a passport from the countries that participate in the International Experience Canada (IEC) program. You can request it directly through the Government of Canada, which awards them by lottery.

If you are looking to visit Canada as a tourist or do short-term studies, what you need is a tourist visa.

The following travelers need an Electronic Travel Authorization (eTA) to board their flight to Canada: Andorra, Australia, Austria, Bahamas, Barbados, Belgium, British citizen, British National (Overseas), British overseas citizen (re-admissible to the United Kingdom ), Anguilla, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Falkland Islands (Malvinas), Gibraltar, Montserrat, Pitcairn Island, Saint Helena, Turks and Caicos Islands, Brunei Darussalam, Bulgaria, Chile, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Republic of Korea, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Mexico, Monaco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Papua New Guinea, Poland, Portugal, Romania (electronic passport holders only), Samoa, San Marino, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Solomon Islands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan (it must have an ordinary passport issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Taiwan that includes the personal identification number), United Arab Emirates, United States, lawful permanent resident of Vatican City State. However, these travelers do not need an eTA if entering by land or sea.

The following travelers need to obtain a tourist visa by any method of travel (plane, car, bus, train, or cruise ship): Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belarus, Belize, Benin, Bhutan, Bolivia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Botswana, Brazil (note: some Brazilian citizens may be eligible for an eTA if they meet certain requirements), Burkina Faso, Burma (Myanmar), Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Chad, China, Colombia, Comoros, Democratic Republic of Congo, Republic of Congo, Costa Rica, Cuba, Djibouti, Dominica, Dominican Republic, East Timor, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Fiji , Gabon, Gambia, Georgia, Ghana, Grenada, Guatemala, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Ivory Coast, Jamaica, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kiribati, Korea, Kosovo, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Macao, Macedonia, Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia, Maldives Islands, Mali, Marshall Islands, Mauritania, Mauritius, Micronesia, Moldova, Mongolia, Montenegro, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Nauru, Nepal, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, Palau, Palestinian Authority , Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Qatar, Romania (holder of a non-electronic passport, such as a temporary passport), Russia, Rwanda, Sao Tomé e Principe, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia , South Africa, South Sudan, Sri Lanka, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines (St. Vincent), Sudan, Surinam, Swaziland, Syria, Taiwan must have a passports other than ordinary passports issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Taiwan that include their personal identification number, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Thailand, Togo, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Tuvalu, Uganda, Ukraine, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, Vanuatu, Venezuela, Vietnam, Yemen, Zambia, Zimbabwe.

Culture and Food in Vancouver

Vancouver has a long Pacific coastline that makes it an emporium of marine resources, beautiful scenery, and world-class cuisine. The city offers everything from street food to gourmet cuisine and everything in between. There is a wide range of menus to suit every type of budget, with some restaurants boasting tasty 5 CAD main courses.

I recommend you try a smoked meat sandwich, pate chinois (mashed potatoes, ground meat, corn, peppers and onions), artic char (fish similar to salmon that is usually cooked roasted, sautéed or grilled), butter tart, trempettes (hot cakes with maple syrup), maple syrup and maple syrup glazed salmon (my favorite).

In addition to the typical foods of the country, Vancouver also offers culinary mixes derived from its cultural diversity. With 65% of the population coming from Asian countries, it is a real gem in terms of Chinese or Japanese food. Sushi fanatics always enjoy a taste of Vancouver life, as there are sushi places on almost every block, especially around Robson Street. 

Noriki Tamura, the creator of Japadog foodtrucks, offers fusions between hot dog and Japanese cuisine. If you like sweet and sour food, I recommend Kurobuta Terimayo which consists of pork sausage, teriyaki and nori seaweed.

The Blue Water (1095 Hamilton Street, Yaletown) offers a taste of the texture of a jellyfish, the incredibly tasty kumi oyster, salmon and popular spot prawn shrimp.

For lovers of gourmet cuisine, I recommend Hawksworth Restaurant, inside the Rosewood Hotel Georgia (801 W Georgia St). In its glamorous and relaxed atmosphere, you can sample traditional British Columbia contemporary cuisine. Their tasting menu includes wild salmon garnished with nori seaweed and spices or an incredible wagyu beef.

Typical Vancouver food is blessed with succulent seafood, sweet maple syrup, and cultural diversity. Bon appetit!

Vancouver Nightlife

Nightlife in Vancouver is typically pretty quiet as the city has very strict licensing and health & safety laws. Regulations against standing in bars and capacity limitations severely hinder the social life of the city. Most of the craziest parties are held in private homes and drinking on the beach or a BBQ with friends are the most common options.

Most Vancouver nightlife and bars are concentrated into five nightlife districts, each with their own unique vibe, including downtown Vancouver’s Granville Street, Gastown, and Yaletown.

The Entertainment District on Granville street mainly attracts teenagers and people in their early twenties. The nightlife seeps into Gastown which has a good mix of cafés, bars and trendy clubs. Yaletown offers a more trendy, pretentious option with many expensive restaurants and discos.

Between the best alternatives you will find Opus Bar (147 E Pender St, 7:00 am to 2:00 am), an in-house bar at the Opus Hotel with a dance-worthy ambiance, thanks to the city’s best DJs and amazing gentry.

The Fortune Sound Club (147 E Pender St, 10:00 pm to 1:00 am) is known for its epic sound system. It is also famous for the awe-striking concerts performed in different genres of music.

The Cobalt (917 Main St), founded in 1911 as a cabaret, nowadays offers live concerts and different artistic events. Its calendar is worth checking.

If you’re looking for dance clubs, then you should consider visiting Celebrities Nightclub (1022 Davie St, 10:00 pm to 3:00 am). Its excellent music sets the whole vibe. It used to be a gay club but now is trendy for straight tourists and locals as well.

Fivesixty (560 Seymour St) is well known for its music and international DJs. It is all about electronic music, psychedelic lighting and dancing all night long. Be prepare for a unique night and two days of sleeping after it.

Things to do in Vancouver

Vancouver offers mountains, sea, beaches, art, museums, gastronomy and a cosmopolitan and calm society. Here you will always have something to do and the endless possibilities of Vancouver are suitable for all tastes.

• Gastown & Steam Clock

  To tour it, you could start in Gastown, the oldest part of Vancouver with classic architecture and wide, tree-lined sidewalks. There you will find the Steam Clock (1977), a curious clock of Victorian design that makes a steam cloud every 30 minutes. It was originally manufactured to cover a street steam grill.

• Canada Place

  I also recommend visiting the Canada Place building, one of the most peculiar buildings in Vancouver with its roof in the shape of five ship sails. It is a nautical terminal from where cruises to Alaska depart.

• Stanley Park

  If you keep walking west, you will find Stanley Park, the largest urban park in Canada. It has two lakes, replicas of original totem poles carved by the natives of the region, about 200 species of native fauna, and trails for cycling or walking. You can rent a bike in the same neighborhood for 5 CAD per hour.

• Queen Elizabeth Park

  Another green bend is the Queen Elizabeth Park, full of gardens that are a work of art. It also has views from the heights and the Bloedel Conservatory, a glass dome that recreates a tropical landscape with more than 120 free exotic birds and 500 plants and trees.

• Grandville Island

  One of the most charming neighborhoods is Grandville Island, formerly an industrial area converted into a leisure space. Its food market is a perfect place to spend the day among a wide variety of food stalls.

• Richmond Night Market

  Another popular market is the Richmond Night Market, one of the city’s Asian neighborhoods. Open only from May to October, it is worth the wait. Here, they say, you can eat the best sushi outside of Japan.

• Kitsilano Beach & English Bay

  During the hot months, one of the best places to relax is Kitsilano Beach. The water is so calm that it looks like a pool of salt water. In front you have the chain of buildings with the green mountains behind. Another beach is English Bay in the city center. Here is the Inukshuk monument, symbol of Canadian Inuit, and the Celebration of Light is held annually.

• Chinatown

  Chinatown will welcome you with the famous Millennium Gate and its Chinese Garden, created by Chinese landscapers in 1985. You will think you have changed continents.

• Science World

  If you are a lover of history and science, the Science World will enchant you. It is an interactive science museum in a spherical building that lights up at night. I also recommend the Museum of Anthropology, which has a large collection of historical objects from Canada and other countries and continents, and the Vancouver Art Gallery, one of the greatest exponents of modern art in the country.

• Yaletown & Vancouver Lookout

  The Yaletown neighborhood is ideal for a night out, in its old converted industrial warehouses where restaurants, bars with lively outdoor terraces and trendy boutiques now reside. In the LGTB area you can take your Instagrammed photo with the colors of the Rainbow Crosswalks. And if you want a panoramic photo of the city from 168 meters high, go up to the Vancouver Lookout. This viewpoint is located on a skyscraper similar to a UFO from where you can admire the city and the port.

• Grouse Grind Hike

  If you like nature and trekking, you can do the 2.8 kilometers of the Grouse Grind Hike trail that connects North Vancouver to the top of Grouse Mountain. The mountain is home to a popular sky station and a haven for wildlife. You can also go up on the chairlift.

• Capilano Bridge Park

  Another excursion, if you do not suffer from vertigo, is the Capilano Bridge Park with a suspension bridge more than 130 meters long and 70 meters from the Capilano River. The Lynn Park Canyon also has a suspension bridge and more than 250 hectares of land full of lush vegetation. It is a good free option for hiking.

Best Time to Visit Vancouver

Vancouver enjoys a privileged location, with coastline and mountains, which are key aspects to understand its type of temperate climate.

Summers are short, comfortable and partly cloudy and winters are long, very cold, wet and mostly cloudy. During the course of the year, the temperature generally ranges from 2 ° C to 23 ° C and rarely drops below -4 ° C or rises above 26 ° C.

Summer runs from June to mid-September. Warm, sunny days are the most common, with temperatures between 20 ° C and 26 ° C.

Autumn, from September to November, has a diverse and rainy climate. In mid and late November, it usually rains almost every day. And from mid-November to the end of February, during winter, the days are cool and humid with lots of drizzle. Temperatures in Vancouver range from 6 ° C to 9 ° C.

It only comes to snow from mid-December to mid-January. Usually, the snow melts quickly from the heat of the city.

From March to the end of April the days are sunnier with temperatures between 10 ° C to 18 ° C. The cherry blossoms appear throughout the city, making this month a true natural spectacle.

Vancouver for Families

If you move with your family, you may want a quiet area, not as expensive as downtown but that provides all the services you need. You will find all this in Greater Vancouver, which is also connected by extremely efficient Vancouver’s public transport. It is primarily responsible for connecting those cities to each other and providing comfort to the families who live there.

All buses and trains are prepared to transport bicycles and baby carriages. That’s why Great Vancouver’s favorite cities for families are Burnaby, Coquitlam (30 minutes by Westcoast Express train), Surrey (50 minutes by train), Richmond (26 minutes by subway) and New Westminster.

Regardless of the region you choose to live in, what is not lacking in Greater Vancouver are low-cost cultural spaces, extensive green areas, leisure areas and parks equipped with games and multi-sports areas.

If you enroll in a community center you will have access to recreational, social and cultural activities. They usually have a gym, pool, arts and crafts and dance classes.

You can also take advantage of the free activities offered in the libraries. The kids can learn more about Canadian culture through play, reading, art activities, music, and recreation. They also offer conversation classes to improve your English and make new friends.

The Strong Start program, offered by some elementary schools at no cost, is intended for parents of children ages zero to five. It offers different learning opportunities based on games, reading, music and physical activities as well as showing parents how they can improve their children’s development. In Vancouver there are 19 StrongStart Centers operating in elementary schools during the class period.

Living in Vancouver

Vancouver Transportation

There main forms of transport in Vancouver are the Skytrain (rapid transit trains), the bus network, commuter rail (West Coast Express) and sea ferry (SeaBus) between North Vancouver and Vancouver. As much as everyone complains about them, they are reliable, punctual and clean 90% of the time. 

The Compass Card allows passengers to pre-load money onto their cards. It can be purchased at a vending machine, transit station or one of the many drugstores and convenience stores. Tickets are valid for 90 minutes, and can be used across buses, SkyTrain, and SeaBus. This means that for the same fare you can start a journey on one method of transport and complete your journey on a second service.

For SkyTrain and SeaBus, the metropolitan area is divided into three zones. The SeaBus travels between downtown Vancouver and North Vancouver. Your fare will depend on how many zones you travel through on your journey. Monthly passes are also available for unlimited travel on SkyTrain, SeaBus, and buses. The cost 98, 131 and 177 CAD, depending on how many zones are required. You can find more information in translink.ca and nb.translink.ca.

There are also many car sharing options like Evo, Car2Go and Modo. Traffic and parking are concerns for every driver, especially if you’re travelling in the busy downtown core. These car-share programs are convenient for one-way trips, and offer a lot of parking options.

If you like cycling, you will love the city and probably travel faster in downtown. Drivers are cognizant and tolerant of cyclists, plus it’s cheap and good for you.

Fitness and Health

Vancouver cracked the top five healthiest cities in the world, according to a report from TravelSupermarket.com. From health food shops and vegan option restaurants to green spaces, fitness studios, gyms and sunlight hours, the city offers a wide variety of options in each of its neighborhoods.

The emphasis on being the perfect fit healthy picture and the proximity to both the beach and the mountains, mean that a lot of social life revolves around skiing in winter and swimming in summer. Maybe that is one of its reasons. 

You will easily find full-service fitness centers offering all kinds of fitness classes, top of the line gym equipment, air-conditioned, personal training, childcare available and a wide range of membership options.

It also has one of the lowest obesity rates in North America and very few people smoke tobacco. Recently enforced bylaws now make it illegal to smoke in bars, restaurants, and most parks. Although, marihuana is legalized and you will associate its smell with the city.

Additionally, Vancouver is very cycle-friendly with a network of dedicated bike lanes. By law, cyclists must wear a helmet and have a bell on their bicycle. Be sure to lock up your bike as bicycle theft is common. If you don’t have one, bike-share program Mobi is a good option.

Vancouver People

Vancouver is one of the most ethnically diverse cities in Canada. People of English, Scottish, Irish and German origins were historically the largest ethnic groups. Over the last 30 years, however, immigration has dramatically increased and almost 30% of the city’s inhabitants are of Asian backgrounds. 

About 50% of the city of Vancouver’s residents and 44% of Metropolitan Vancouver’s residents don’t speak English as their first language. Here is no real sense of belonging and therefore everybody mostly just gets along. Here you can find small communities from different parts of the world and feel at home while expanding your panorama.

British Columbia was the second Canadian province (after Ontario) to legalize same-sex marriage. Therefore, the city has a large gay community and hosts one of the country’s largest annual gay pride parades. If you are from the LGTB community, you will feel welcome here.

Vancouver’s people are mostly friendly and polite. Although Vancouverites are rather reserved and difficult to become good friends with. It takes time but I am pretty sure you will find the way to get to their hearts. 

Vancouver Insurance and Medical Care

Canada is consistently ranked as one of the countries with the best healthcare system in the world due to its care and quality. However, it has free public health care only for citizens and permanent residents and only for medically necessary treatments.

Therefore, if you are an expat without permanent resident status, you should make sure that you are covered by some type of international health insurance; otherwise, the costs of medical services can be extremely high. For example, a non-resident can pay up to 5 3.750 USD per day of hospitalization.

Even if you are a resident, most of the medications required for treatment require payment. If the treatment is not considered medically necessary, it will not be covered by the public system. A large proportion of Canadians have health or employment plans that partially or fully cover the costs of medicines necessary for treatment.

Expats looking into making Canada their permanent home, can apply for a medicare card as soon as they register as residents. The card will take on average 3 months to be issued. In the meantime, you should supplement with private healthcare.

There is also limited coverage on things like mental and oral health, some forms of therapy, assistive devices, and sex reassignment surgery.

Another con of the health system is the waiting times to see a doctor. Compared to other developed countries, Canada has the longest average wait time. Hire a private insurance and be prepared to spend a lot of time in waiting rooms.

Make sure you are fully covered by reading our full Digital Nomad Travel Insurance guide.

Jobs in Vancouver

To work in Canada, the first thing you need to have is a work permit and a social insurance number (SIN). In Vancouver it could to be really hard to find a job before you arrive. Ones you are there, you will need to Canadianize your CV and be prepared to write some cover letters.

To get you started on your hunt for a job in Vancouver, check out out LinkedIn, Workopolis, Monster, Eluta, Indeed, Wowjobs, recruitment agencies like Goldbeck and Robert Half. You can also check Craigslist, Working.com, Human Resources and Skills Development Canada job bank, BC Government jobs, Federal Government jobs and BCJobs.

If your idea is to find a temporary job, you will find fast. If you are looking for a job in hostelry, catering or shops, it is best to take a walk through the center and leave your CV in each place you see with a sign saying they are looking for staff.

Also, there are many temporary work agencies in Vancouver. For example, Nasco focuses on events, conventions, concerts, and shows. You can register online. Then you must present the CV in the interview. The job offer system is by text message. If you are interested in the offer, you answer by message and they immediately confirm if you have been selected. Another company of this type is Destination One, which mainly offers work in warehouses. You can also look at Miles Employment Group, Angus One and UBC Staff Finders.

If you want to work 7 days a week with morning, afternoon and night shifts in Vancouver you could do it. Many Canadians do not value these types of jobs, so if you are responsible, you could end up as a supervisor or group leader. And that means more money!

Check out our in-depth Digital Nomads Jobs Postings to find the best jobs available for Digital Nomads.