First date ideas

A warm 200-seat theatre in Port Moody's Newport Village, with dinner steps away and acoustics regulars actually brag about.

Canada's largest blue whale skeleton hangs over the entrance ramp, just in case you needed a conversation starter.

An intimate downtown gallery for Haida master Bill Reid and contemporary Indigenous artists, where the jewellery cases invite actual leaning-in.

Canada's only paper-art gallery is free, inside a 1911 Tudor mansion, and the rowboats are just outside.

Thirty live shows a year in a 486-seat suburban theatre that makes a proper night out cost less than you'd spend on regret.

A 658-seat North Shore theatre where the SeaBus ride home, with city lights on the water, is half the date.

The Chinese-Canadian story told through personal voices, photographs, and an animated dining table, inside a heritage bank on Pender.

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

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

Brave, current theatre and contemporary dance in a restored 1906 fire station, close enough to practically touch the performance.

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

Free rotating art galleries in a century-old French-Canadian mansion in Maillardville, with a heritage square and museum out back.

A cavernous 1894 salmon cannery on the Steveston waterfront, with modest admission, clattering machinery, and fish and chips on the dock after.

Port Coquitlam's free little museum inside a real community arts village, run by people who genuinely love this town.

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.

Surrey's free interactive museum in Historic Cloverdale, with touchscreens, a working textile studio, and walkable antique shops for after.

Museum-quality Inuit and Northwest Coast art on the North Van Shipyards since 1979, free to walk in, steps from Lonsdale Quay.

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

A free contemporary gallery on the third floor of the Anvil Centre, programming international artists who work in light, sound and code.

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

A flying-saucer building in Vanier Park filled with neon signs, 1950s living rooms, and the city's own messy, fascinating story.

Hop a SeaBus, land at a sawtooth-roofed gallery by the Shipyards, and redirect your donation budget straight to the patio beer next door.

Richmond's surprise art date: free contemporary shows inside the Cultural Centre, with the Golden Village waiting nearby for soup dumplings.

An 1893 Rattenbury home in the West End with Sunday teas and pay-what-you-can jazz on the porch all summer.

Surrey's only intact 19th-century farm, with costumed staff, a heritage herb garden, and Blackie Spit trails next door.

A former courthouse holding the world's largest Emily Carr collection, by-donation Tuesdays and free every first Friday of the month.

A museum built around a 100-foot 1928 RCMP schooner that crossed the Northwest Passage twice. First Sundays are pay-what-you-can.

Canada's oldest police museum is in a real 1932 morgue where Errol Flynn was once examined. Open Thursday to Sunday.

Over a million lights, reflecting ponds, and a Christmas-tree forest that changes colour to music in a botanical garden.

East Van's beloved restored 1913 hall where the shows are eclectic, the acoustics are great, and the Drive is right outside.

Fourteen three-metre bronze men frozen in full hysterical laughter, open 24/7, and required by inscription to bring you joy.

Two free kilometres of Coal Harbour glamour: the Olympic Cauldron, a LEGO-look orca, floatplanes, and zero spent.

Walk The Drive end to end, argue soccer pennants over a cappuccino at Vancouver's oldest Italian coffee shop, and spend nothing.

A free oceanside amphitheatre at Kits Beach, been running since the 1930s, still better than most paid dates.

One of the world's only steam clocks, cobblestones, gas lamps, and Vancouver's full origin story for the cost of absolutely nothing.

Port Moody's original main street: false fronts, vintage shops, painted utility boxes and a 1908 railway station at the end of it.

Ride the SeaBus across Burrard Inlet, browse 80-plus stalls at Lonsdale Quay Market, and watch downtown light up from North Vancouver.

Free outdoor tribute concerts at Town Centre Park, food trucks from 6pm, and Lafarge Lake a two-minute walk away.

The ticketed garden's free sibling: koi, lily ponds, a pagoda, and a full afternoon in Chinatown for $0.

Two five-metre house sparrows stand in Olympic Village square, free to visit, and exactly as uncanny as that sounds.

60 stalls, a lake, a coffee truck, and an official 'no plan' plan every Saturday morning in John Hendry Park.

300-plus murals mapped free on the VMF app around Main Street. A treasure hunt with very large prizes.

Level 9 of the Central Library has a free rooftop garden with downtown skyline views. Most Vancouverites have no idea it exists.

Burnaby's Italian high street: four blocks of delis, a sixty year old bakery, murals, and the North Shore mountains at the end of every cross street.

A free Fraser River boardwalk plus an indoor food market in New Westminster, ten SkyTrain minutes from downtown.

A storybook heritage corner store turned French-countryside cafe, so charming it feels slightly unfair to the competition.

A warm little roaster-cafe on the UBC campus doing proper espresso, fresh pastries, and house bagels, an easy first stop before the gardens or the beach.

A century-old Port Moody building reborn as a cafe-slash-art-gallery, with vinyl, plants, cortados and a built-in conversation starter on every wall.

A breezy little cafe two blocks from the sand that grew out of a beach coffee bike, for the date that's basically already at the beach.

An award-winning timber pavilion shaped like a flower, where the room is so good the coffee almost has to apologize for stealing focus.

A flower-strewn cafe in Gastown's flatiron that pours espresso by day and natural wine by night, so one date can quietly become three.

A leafy Strathcona corner store that pours a proper flat white between the produce and the local doughnuts, village-shop charm and all.

A husband-and-wife Italian bakery-cafe on the Drive where a morning cornetto and an evening aperitivo are the same great date, twice.

A beloved independent Newton cafe with a proper sit-down room, fresh-baked pastries, and a seven-hundred-review reputation.

A sun-filled European room on West 4th with a hidden garden patio and a weekend tiramisu worth planning your day around.

Vancouver's original multi-roaster, where the coffee list rotates weekly and the baristas take your pour-over more seriously than you take most things.

A tiny Turkish-run cafe on a tucked-away downtown Langley lane, where sweet and savoury crepes meet a proper Turkish coffee.

An independent Guildford cafe pairing premium lattes with Korean desserts, bingsu, fresh taiyaki, and halo-halo, open late.

A cosy Yaletown roastery with the one thing Yaletown rarely offers a coffee date: enough seats to actually settle in and talk.

A tiny French pastry counter in Ladner Village where the macarons and the croissants are the reason people drive out here.

Emeri does specialty matcha and soft serve at 2833 Main, a 20 minute stop that works as dessert rather than the main event.

A blush-pink micro-roastery on Broadway that roasts in the corner and looks like a date already in progress.

Chinatown's most serious coffee program in its most serene room, rotating Canada's best roasters through a space built for quiet talk.

A serious North Van roastery that's been roasting its own organic beans since 2004, with Thomas Haas pastries as the supporting act.

A gloriously over-the-top Italian coffee palace on the Drive, all marble, chandeliers and Roman statues, running since 1976 and taking exactly zero notes.

A 4.9 rated bakery on Sixth Street where the laminated pastry is the reason and the flat white is the excuse.

An award-winning Swiss chocolatier-patisserie in Burnaby Heights where the espresso is merely the excuse and the cube croissant is the reason.

A warm, cabin-feel cafe on Deep Cove's main street, purpose-built for the coffee you earn after Quarry Rock.

A leafy West End corner cafe two blocks from Stanley Park, with actual seating, an upstairs record shop, and the best built-in second act in the city.

The caffeinated heart of historic Cloverdale, roasting its own beans a few doors from Main Street's heritage storefronts.

A Gastown roastery dressed like a vintage railway carriage, pouring the kind of coffee that makes you forget you had somewhere to be.

A converted Gastown warehouse turned sunlit bakery-cafe, where daily sourdough, good espresso and reclaimed-furniture charm make lingering the entire plan.

A tiny Commercial Drive room built on Italian aperitivo culture, amaro walls, and booths sized for exactly two.

A gloriously retro sunken circular bar a block off English Bay, where happy hour, low light, and the best free sunset in the city do all the work.

The Fort Langley cafe-bookshop where a fig-and-brie grilled cheese and a well-timed chapter have rescued worse dates than yours.

A beach-village cafe a block from the sand where the smoked-salmon bagel has a cult following and the patio is dog-friendly.

Secondhand shelves, Colombian coffee from Huila, and a nonprofit backbone that makes your latte feel genuinely virtuous.

The old Old Crow room on Front Street, now pouring cocktails named after star signs until eleven.

The Klahanie roastery where from-scratch pastries and occasional live sets turn coffee into the plan, not just the preamble.

A proper old English pub hidden in a courtyard behind Marine Drive, one block up from Ambleside Beach, with the cheapest pints in West Vancouver and no pretension at all.

A cash-only 1950 White Rock diner with the original milkshake machine, three TV shows' worth of film cred, and free coffee refills.

North Van's original nano-brewery, still pouring one of the best IPA lineups in the region out of a tasting room that has never once tried to be fancy.

Arguably Steveston's best patio, with a rotating tap list and a flight-friendly board for finding out whose beer takes are a dealbreaker.

All-butter pies and specialty coffee on a heritage strip in Moody Centre, where the afternoon has nowhere else to be.

Coquitlam's original craft brewery since 2017, with tasting flights that stretch from crisp lagers to genuinely weird small-batch experiments.

Maple Ridge's original 2015 craft brewery, with the honest tasting-room warmth that every big flashy taproom is still trying to fake.

A Mount Pleasant urban winery fermenting natural BC wine in buried Georgian clay jars, with Saturday jazz and grocery-style cheese plates.

Follow the single red light behind a Main Street furniture shop down a graffiti stairwell into Vancouver's most satisfying open secret.

A shag-carpeted 1970s speakeasy hidden behind a fake accounting office, where the cocktails are far better than the decor suggests.

A Cacao Barry ambassador's tiny Swiss patisserie where the pistachio-versus-blueberry macaron debate has caused real diplomatic incidents.

Off the Moda Hotel lobby on Seymour: low-lit, Italian small plates, marble bar, and a daily 2-to-5 happy hour worth knowing about.

Five thousand reviews and a 4.7 for one gloriously butter-drowned Amritsari kulcha. Dignity is optional.

PoCo's smokehouse and brewhouse on one address: ribs, pulled pork, craft beer and a gin list that no one saw coming.

Coquitlam's tiny family-run Korean spot with a 4.7 and a tableside bibimbap ritual that keeps people coming back every week.

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

An actual world-champion gelatiere turning out four-litre artisan batches a block from English Bay, ideal after a seawall stroll.

A dum biryani lid that opens in a cloud of saffron, a mandi built for two, and the kitchen open until 2am on weekends.

Downtown Maple Ridge's small-town bistro with an urban streak, open at 8am for corned beef hash, poached eggs and a decent flat white.

One of Vancouver's highest-rated Indian spots on The Drive, where street-food snacks flow into proper cocktails and a room that hums.

A Vietnamese kitchen with a French cooking style in the Beach District, where the pho broth gets the bone-marrow treatment.

A tiny Queensbury Village brunch room where the eggs benedict lands on house-made savoury bread pudding instead of an English muffin.

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.

Tsawwassen's own coffee house and licensed bistro, scratch-baking since 2012 and open at 7am for breakfast sandwiches and a properly pulled espresso.

A 1926 North Shore institution where the Yukon-style bacon arrives in slabs and a century of carved masks watches you eat breakfast.

The sunny tiled downtown room with legendary Belgian waffles, a lavender dark chocolate situation, and a line that is genuinely worth it.

An Austin Heights brunch room where a Humber-trained chef puts bulgogi beef on the eggs benedict and wraps kimchi into a breakfast burrito.

Butter chicken tacos, red-leather booths and craft cocktails, in a South Surrey taproom with half a rickshaw by the door.

North Van's quietly confident Indian room: rogan josh, naan from the tandoor, and an underground parking situation nobody warns you about.

Delhi golgappa you pop one at a time, a mithai counter glowing with barfi and jalebi, and a 4.5 from regulars who know their pani puri.

Vancouver's original Korean fried chicken house since 2011: soy-garlic, cold beer, and a kitchen that runs till 1am.

Downtown's chocolaterie-patisserie on Alberni: thick drinking chocolate, a macaron case that looks like jewellery, and cheap enough to be completely spontaneous.

Yaletown's new 270 seat comfort food operation changes personality three times a day, and every version of it thinks your date deserves a margarita.

The North Shore's answer to 'where do we even go for Korean up here': bubbling soondubu, soy-garlic chicken, and harbour light afterward.

Fort Langley's artisan bakeshop on the site of a 1910 blacksmith's, open at 7am for breakfast, oversized laminated pastry and Republica coffee.

A calm Newport Village sushi room with soft jazz and private curtained tables you can pull closed and slip your shoes off at.

Chinatown's buzziest small-plates room, where shao bing and cocktails you can't pronounce will do the talking for you.

PoCo's beloved dim sum room: carts, steam, har gow to xiao long bao and the best argument you'll have all week.

Newton's best-loved South Indian anchor: a metre-long crispy dosa eaten by hand, and filter coffee poured from a height with ceremony.

Newton's 4.7-rated pure-veg temple: a dosa longer than the table, six little steel bowls, and zero pressure to be elegant about it.

South Indian dosas with a cocktail list built for spice, low lighting, and 2,300 reviewers who've already figured this out.

Named after an epic, delivering on it: North Delta's 4.6-rated Hyderabadi dum biryani, sealed under dough and saffron-stained.

Proper Hyderabadi dum biryani on Fraser Street, open till 2am weekends, with a karaoke machine if the night insists.

Doors at 7am, a glass roof over the Fraser, and thirteen kinds of eggs benedict at the only Dutch breakfast room in the region.

A Cloverdale farm-road diner that opens at 6am, takes its hollandaise seriously and charges diner money for it.

Vancouver's beloved small-batch ice cream in reusable glass jars, a short stroll from the Olympic Village seawall.

Six or eight tables, Ethiopian art, and a tradition called gursha where you hand-feed each other, which is romantic on purpose.

Burnaby's licensed Eritrean room where you eat by hand, drink properly, and stay longer than you planned to.

The Burnaby sleeper locals quietly guard: a 4.6-rated Ethiopian-Eritrean room where regulars insist the food is the best in the province.

White Rock's most-booked brunch room: small, rustic, and making nearly everything in the building, from the bread to the butchery.

Fort Langley's homegrown brewery pours its own beer beside a Fraser Valley seasonal menu and a turfed, dog-friendly patio.

Ocean Wise fish, bottomless fries, and a Rocky Point inlet view that no sit-down restaurant in Port Moody can match.

Frying halibut on Horseshoe Bay's waterfront since 1946, which makes Troll's older than the bridges you probably crossed to get here.

A small Burnaby Heights brunch room doing towering buttermilk pancakes and a Cajun fried chicken benny, doors at 8am.

Maple Ridge's only room actually on the Fraser: two seasonal patios, a heated covered one for the other nine months, and water from every seat.

The Fraser St bistro that locals call FauxBo, guard jealously, and can't stop recommending despite the notoriously tough reservation.

An Austin Heights institution since 1997, Northern Italian pastas and desserts made by hand in a cozy neighbourhood room.

A Steveston gelato shop with flavours like Hong Kong milk tea and miso caramel, steps from the boardwalk.

A reservation-taking, sit-down burger room in Mount Pleasant: exposed brick, Edison bulbs, leather booths and an open kitchen turning out award-winning halal Angus burgers.

The 1980 blue-and-white taverna locals quietly choose over its famous neighbour, with a for-two platter and the seawall a ten-minute walk out.

A Burnaby Heights pasta institution since 1986 where one bowl genuinely feeds two and the lineup out the door is non-negotiable.

The Steveston heritage room that played Granny's Diner on Once Upon a Time, open at 9am for bennies, omelettes and chowder a block off the boardwalk.

A 1933 heritage house in Fort Langley with a flower-framed patio, live music on Thursdays, and contemporary Canadian cooking worth the drive.

The tiny Burquitlam Korean spot with no grill theatre: dolsot bibimbap arriving sizzling in stone, a 4.4, and seats that go fast.

The Victoria Drive neighbourhood Korean where a seafood pancake loaded with squid does the icebreaking, and gentle prices do the rest.

Butter chicken that earns its fame, a tandoor running hot, and the rare gift of easy parking on date night.

Butter chicken poutine, paneer tacos and spiced cocktails in Surrey's slickest Indian lounge, open until 3am.

Crispy chilli paneer, wok-charred Hakka noodles and a cold drink to put out the fire, in Surrey's Newton neighbourhood.

New West's Ethiopian-Eritrean spot where dinner is a shared platter you eat by hand and ends with a traditional coffee ceremony.

A two-decade Commercial Drive institution where dinner is one shared injera platter you eat by hand, no forks, no rushing.

Lantern-lit West End izakaya where the sake list rewards bravery and stone-grilled beef keeps arriving until you've forgotten your plans.

Off-Fraser corner café, 4.7-rated, with jerk chicken that falls off the bone and oxtail rich enough to end an argument.

The Drive's long-loved Jamaican kitchen, where jerk, oxtail and a sunny terrace do the date-night heavy lifting.

A decades-long West Broadway fixture serving Kashmiri and Mughlai recipes nobody else in the city is cooking.

South-west Indian coastal cooking, Vancouver Foodster Curry Challenge winner, in a Surrey room where coconut and tamarind run everything.

Tabletop grills, marinated galbi and a running argument about who's hogging the grill: Insadong is North Road's best date sport.

Fleetwood's roomy, generous Korean kitchen where the donkatsu arrives shatteringly crisp and ample parking is honestly part of the romance.

A Richmond Korean izakaya running to 2am on weekends, because someone had to do it, and spicy chicken-cheese demanded a late-night home.

Gastown's Gold-winning Korean tavern, named for old roadside inns, with a happy hour that runs twice a night.

A pastel Parisian parlour making obscenely rich creme-anglaise ice cream, where sharing a jar counts as a whole date.

Richmond's modern Indian spot that quietly specializes in lamb and goat off the tandoor, instead of just butter chicken again.

Gary, Anu, and thirty years at the stove make Langley's top-rated Indian worth every minute of the drive.

Crispy, forearm-length dosas and midnight filter coffee until 3am, for the night that isn't over yet.

A layered Uji-matcha parfait engineered for two spoons and one 'that bite was mine'.

A Mexican inspired kitchen on Union Street that takes brunch and dinner equally seriously, so it fits whichever end of the day you pick.

The Chupito team turned a pop up into a permanent cantina on Seymour Street, cocktail led, loud in the way you want a Tuesday to be.

Canada's first proper mezcaleria on The Drive, where house-pressed tortillas and small-batch mezcal flights have an excellent working relationship.

A Moody Centre brunch room built by people who thought pancakes deserved a wider window, with deep booths, rattan lamps and a flight of mimosas on a board.

A sleek Coquitlam bistro with a 4.5 across nearly a thousand reviews, because the lamb biryani has something to say for itself.

Dark brick, low light and west-coast Mexican cooking in Edgemont Village, run by the children of the cafe that stood 100 metres away.

Ladner Village's cozy 4.7-star Italian, crisp wood-fired pizzas and house pasta at prices that make it a weeknight regular.

The top-ranked restaurant in Coquitlam, a warm family-run taverna famous for enormous portions and a festive room.

Port Moody's most-loved pizza, charred pillowy Neapolitan pies from a blazing wood oven, ten minutes from Brewers Row.

A thirty-year Dundarave corner bakery where the butter smell hits before the door, and the cinnamon buns sell out before noon.

The legendary Chennai tiffin institution arrives in North Delta with crispy dosas, a filter coffee ritual, and an unlimited weekend thali that earns the drive.

Fukuoka-style tonkotsu you customize on a little order sheet, plus a queue that counts as your best first-date warmup.

A thirty-year-old Richmond warehouse hung with classic records and old instruments, serving crab cake bennies and waffles from 8am, seven days.

A Kits diner since 1988, so stuffed with vintage toys and lunchboxes there's barely room for the towering buttermilk pancakes.

West-side favourite churning honey-lavender, salted-caramel, and rotating seasonal flavours from local dairy, a block off the Kitsilano-Point Grey stretch of West 4th.

Hand-churned small-batch since 1997 in Port Moody, with banana fudge, espresso flake, and a doggie scoop for the third wheel.

House-ground spices, dum-steamed goat biryani, and a 4.7 rating that makes two thousand Googlers sound completely reasonable.

West Coast seafood and a marina-view patio at the toe of Horseshoe Bay, two minutes from the ferry ramp.

The chain that helped invent Korean fried chicken, now on Robson Street, with yangnyeom, soy-garlic, and tteokbokki tucked right in.

The only dinner where eating with your hands from the same plate is not just allowed, it's the whole point.

Monzo means beef in Italian dialect, so this place is literally named Beef Burger, and that level of confidence extends to the fries.

The West End Korean spot where even soju-skeptics order the yogurt bottle and come back for late-night all-you-can-eat wings.

A bright Alexandra Road patisserie where a Mont Blanc and a chiffon cake photograph better than either of you.

Hop-forward Brewers Row craft beer, a Space Armadillo DIPA, and an al pastor taco menu that nobody expected but everybody needs.

A stylish two-level Moody Centre taqueria, globally-inspired tacos and a rotating list of BC craft beer.

Commercial Drive's Trinidadian counter spot, where you tear buss-up-shut roti with your hands and bond over the glorious mess.

Farm-to-cone gelato at the water's edge on the quiet south shore of False Creek, best eaten on the move with the seawall as your table.

The plant-filled Main Street room that makes a first date feel like it's going well before a word is spoken.

The Vietnamese street food that made Anthony Bourdain misty on television now has a permanent home on The Drive.

A brewpub in the middle of an 1860s fishing village, with the longest bar in Ladner and a backyard patio built for slow afternoons.

A ten-acre South Langley farm where the fortified walnut wine tastes like Christmas and the preserves are genuinely strange in the best way.

The only Ladner table actually over the water: chowder, coconut prawns and the fishing fleet sliding past the deck.

The North Shore's only certified Neapolitan oven, hot enough to blister a margherita in about ninety seconds.

A lofty Main Street bar that solved pizza-or-pho by doing both, with local craft taps, until 2am on weekends.

The Birdhouse team's new 150 seat room on Gore Ave pairs funky cocktails with drag shows, which makes it a date with a running order.

Upstairs from Juke Fried Chicken, a tiny neon cocktail bar serves drinks named Eraserhead and hot chicken until 1am on weekends.

Double-fried yangnyeom chicken and soju near Lafarge Lake in Coquitlam, when everything else in the area has gone dark.

The cult Tofino orange-truck taco joint landed on Johnston Road, and the crunchy chicken burrito is genuinely worth the trip.

Open since 1968, open till 3am on weekends: miso-gravy sesame fries, live music and Vancouver's most persuasive vegetarian argument.

Shatteringly crisp Korean fried chicken in soy-garlic and spicy, plus tteokbokki and LA galbi, on Robson until 1am seven nights a week.

A 24-hour West End bakery open 365 days: fresh donuts, towering cake and proper coffee at any absurd hour you choose.

A hidden UBC tavern in a heritage building with a string-lit, tree-ringed patio, a serious beer list, and live music most weekends.

Cocktails in sand buckets with plastic shovels, a legendary double-crunch taco and 2am closing on Blood Alley in Gastown.

A sandwich board and some stairs in Gastown lead to a brick-arched basement with two live bands a night until 2am.

Canada's most comprehensive metaphysical bookshop, incense-scented since 1970, with crystals, singing bowls, and cozy nooks that make rainy afternoons feel intentional.

A tiny downtown shop dealing in used, rare, and slightly bizarre books, with a hand-carved sign and staff who actually read.

Vancouver's first micro-distillery, opened in 2013, is still a happy secret near the Granville bridge on rainy Thursdays through Sundays.

An Indigenous-owned Chinatown bookstore voted the city's best, where every spine feels hand-picked and a ten-dollar book beats flowers every time.

A Kitsilano tea bar on West 4th that pours rare single-origin leaves like a wine flight, one steep at a time.

A by-donation heritage museum with a world-class model railway, and a real 1880s home next door to wander through.

Coquitlam's beloved Korean jjimjilbang: charcoal saunas, hot tubs, provided pyjamas, and hours of conversation on a heated floor.

Watch your gin being made through a glass wall, then drink it in a guided flight while rain hammers the warehouse roof.

Owner Olivia steeps whites, greens and blacks in Chinatown like a wine flight, narrates the goji notes, and charges very little.

Surrey's original 1870s downtown: a walkable grid of heritage storefronts, murals, and antique shops that doubles as a famous film set.

An 1860s Fraser River fishing village with its main street intact: heritage churches, a 1932 clock tower, murals, and a working boat basin at the end of the road.

The only patio right on Jericho Beach, upstairs at the sailing centre, with burgers, cold local beer, and a full-frontal view of the downtown skyline at sunset.

South Langley estate winery famous for its bubbles, its vines, its staff who actually know their wines, and no rush.