Vancouver, Canada

Vancouver, Canada
December 2025.

Visiting family in New Zealand for Christmas was decided fairly last minute and flying halfway around the world from London to New Zealand at Christmas is a very expensive affair. I spent quite some time trying to find a route that wasn’t going to break the bank, force us to spend nine hours lurking in a Chinese airport* or have us make more than one layover stop on the way there and back. We normally fly via an Asian city, but for a change the cheaper option was to transit Vancouver in Canada. There was a slightly cheaper option to take a 9-hour layover, which we elected to do with a plan to leave the airport and briefly visit the city as neither of us have been to Canada.

13 hours after leaving Auckland we arrived at Vancouver Airport. With visa waivers already procured and our suitcase theoretically being loaded onto the flight to London (it was) we whisked through Canada immigration and out of the airport. We had planned on taking five hours in the city, not wanting to put pressure on getting back into the airport for the onward journey, and had sort of looked up a couple of things to do.

The timing wasn’t perfect as it’s winter and the sun sets quite early, so we didn’t have a huge amount of daylight hours to wander about, it wasn’t exactly warm either, not compared to those balmy 25 degree days in Auckland. Luckily, we had planned and dressed for the cold. To be fair it wasn’t a lot colder than London.

Once we’d negotiated the ticket machine (We’d been awake for 24 hours by that time) we took the 25-minute train journey to Waterfront on the edge of Gastown. Gastown is the oldest part of Vancouver, originating in the 1870s and the main area we wanted to walk around. It’s a kinda funky, hipster area, loads of bars and cafes, and a big record shop that I managed to ignore.

It also had the Steam Clock, a seemingly Victorian era relic. However, it was actually built in 1997 to resemble something from the old days. It is powered from steam pipes that run under the  Gastown streets to provide heating to the buildings. It’s not huge but is quite cool and there were a lot of people taking photos.

I was surprised to find quite a few good examples of brutalist architecture, I’d not done any research before we left home, so this was a bonus find and a good reason to come back on some future New Zealand trip; and stay a bit longer than a few hours.

We walked down to the waterfront and took some photos of the snow-capped mountains on the far side of the harbour. As darkness was approaching and the city was lighting up it was a pretty sight; albeit one with large ships and portside infrastructure in the foreground.

With daylight running down and exhaustion setting in we decided to take time out and sit in a bar and drink a cocktail or two. This was a good choice, and the final thing we did before heading back to the airport for the final nine hours back home.

Canada is the 65th country I’ve visited, by my rules at least. leaving the airport and spending a minimum four hours counts as a visit. I’m keen to explore much more of this vast nation and had plans when I was touring the world in 2012 to train-trip from one side to the other. Maybe I will save that for retirement now.

*I have no issue with China or Chinese airports, not that I’ve been to either, I wanted to book tickets as fast as possible as the price was rising daily and just didn’t have time to spend applying for a Chinese visa. If we had an 11-hour layover in Beijing like my son did last time he visited, then I would be wanting to leave the airport for a walk around.