Burnaby Blues and Roots Festival

Shakespeare in a tent by the water at Vanier Park, running all summer.

Broadway musicals under the open sky at the Malkin Bowl in Stanley Park.

A moving museum of Japanese-Canadian history with real artifacts and oral histories, plus a tranquil Japanese garden with a pond and maples.

Vancouver's answer to the Vegas Sphere: a 360 dome at the Space Centre where Pink Floyd, blue whales and the cosmos wrap the entire ceiling in 10K and Dolby Atmos, watched flat on your back from a reclining seat.

Suzhou artisans, no nails, Ming Dynasty methods, and National Geographic's vote for the world's top city garden, in Chinatown.

Vancouver's 1981 indie record shop, where the bins reveal more about a person than any dating app ever will.

A full Broadway musical outdoors in Stanley Park: Sister Act and The Little Mermaid alternate nightly at Malkin Bowl through August 22.

Towering totem poles against sea and forest, a half-price Thursday, and the trip to UBC that's actually worth it.

Restored wooden boats, tall ships, and live music along the weathered boardwalks of a historic Fraser River shipyard in Steveston.

Thirty-one reconstructed 1920s buildings, a 1912 carousel, and the quiet suspicion you'd actually thrive back then.

Eighty-plus unfiltered indie shows across Granville Island, most of them an hour or less, so you can see two in a night and argue about them over a waterfront drink.

The largest Emily Carr survey in over twenty years fills the Vancouver Art Gallery with her swirling BC forests and coastlines.

Port Moody's only free public gallery, housed in two heritage buildings that make the romance look effortless.

Shakespeare under canvas in Vanier Park, with the mountains and the sea doing their golden-hour thing right behind the actors.