The PNE Fair

Vancouver's end-of-summer fair: wooden-coaster rides at Playland, mini donuts, SuperDogs, and a free evening concert folded into admission.

Since 1931, this 137-metre saltwater pool at Kits Beach has been making Vancouver look embarrassingly good.

A brand-new, gloriously surreal 18 hole mini golf course in Stanley Park, open daily through fall 2026, with a DJ spinning vinyl on late summer nights.

Port Moody's waterfront park: free spray park, a regionally famous skate-and-bike-trials park, and the best spectating in the Lower Mainland.

High-tech laser rooms and reaction walls where you'll both be terrible and have the best time.

Vancouver's top-rated escape rooms, where sixty minutes of pressure reveals exactly how the two of you argue under stress.

Ethiopian stews by hand, a live Friday band, and the kind of injera-sharing that requires getting very comfortable very quickly.

No ropes, no lessons, just colour-coded problems and a foam floor that makes falling part of the fun.

Where Pondicherry's centuries-old French-Indian love affair lands in Hastings-Sunrise, with a coconut tequila chaser.

New Westminster's award winning aquatic centre hides an adults only hot tub, a steam room and a lazy river you can drift for an hour.

Three generations of the Marino family, since 1947, serving up glow bowling, reasonably priced beer, and genuine no-dress-code energy on Commercial Drive.

A Top Chef alum runs the griddle at this pastel 1950s room on Pemberton, where the coin-tiled floor was laid by hand and the milkshakes are still spun to order.

The cult Belgian brewery on Thunderbird Crescent where national-medal sours and golden tripels await anyone clever enough to find it.

A miniature railway, a rose garden, a waterfall, and a round of mini-golf in Surrey's 150-acre secret.