DrVoyageur - Budget Travel Tips Home Page

Choosing the
best hostel for you

Los Angeles hostel locations, including Santa Monica and Venice Beach:
1. Hollywood hostels: pros and cons
2. Beach hostels: pros and cons
3. Beach hostels: directions

Vancouver hostels: best locations

• Hostels adjacent to beaches and forests (summer only),
• Hostels in the Vancouver city centre, and
• Hostels in or adjacent to a skid road as bad as any in North America.
  

Vancouver city centre hostels pros and cons

Let’s start with these, as they’re open all year and are conveniently located in downtown Vancouver.

Very importantly, you are at the hub of both bus and rapid transit to throughout the Vancouver region and within walking distance of the SeaBus, which takes you across Vancouver Harbour. You can easily access Chinatown and Stanley Park.

You'll find nearly all Vancouver nightlife in or near the city centre. The streets near most hostels remain lively into the night, which promotes safety.

Finding free parking can be a hassle and paid parking expensive.

Vancouver city centre hostel choices

For most, use the pull down menu to show currency of your choice on the price page. The rest show Canadian dollars only. There are no booking fees.

SameSun Backpacker Lodges – super location near Robson Square puts you in centre of entertainment district.

Very near most clubs, Vancouver Art Gallary, Vancouver Symphony, and most popular shopping. Walk to Canada Place and BC Place Stadium.

Hostelling International Vancouver Central – same excellent location as the SameSun. New.

Hostelling International Vancouver Downtown – away from (but still within walking distance of) other hostels at the edge of a predominately residential area of the West End, but very near English Bay beaches and the indoor Vancouver Aquatic Centre.

Walk or bike across Burrard Bridge for views of city and of the mountains beyond, as well as to reach Kits Beach and its awesome outdoor pool, the longest in Canada, which overlooks bay and city.

The Cambie International Hostel - Seymour - not to be confused with its Gastown location.

The Urban Hideaway Guesthouse – no single or dorm rooms, but very well run guesthouse in super convenient city centre location.

Summer-only beach hostels

HI-Vancouver Jericho Beach sits in a park at Jericho Beach, with outstanding views from its grounds of city centre Vancouver and Stanley Park across English Bay and of the mountains that tower beyond these.

You’ll easily access popular Spanish Banks beach and Pacific Spirit Park for hiking. Frequent city bus service to city centre stops two blocks away.

Of all the hostels, HI Jericho Beach offers the best parking situation and it’s free.

Jericho is a well run hostel. I felt as if I was staying at an old army barracks and indeed I was!

Drawbacks? No restaurants, cafes, pubs, other nightlife, or markets in its immediate area other than a cafe at the hostel that serves breakfast and dinner.

Open May through September only.

Pacific Spirit Hostel at the University of British Columbia doesn't use the same dorms each summer, but these always have single or double rooms, without bath.

You’re always within walking distance of Wreak Beach, the most popular clothing-optional beach in Canada or the U.S., and Pacific Spirit Park.

You’ll have access to many UBC facilities, including the remarkable Asian Garden at the UBC Botanic Garden and the outstanding Museum of Antropology, as well as a variety of inexpensive dining choices and an outdoor Olympic-sized pool and indoor aquatic centre. From UBC, frequent bus service fans out to any point in Vancouver.

Drawbacks? No real kitchen and absolutely nothing done to foster friendly interaction among guests. Unlike many hostels, there are no group activities. Although the staff is generally nice and helpful, the feeling at Pacific Spirit Hostel is the most impersonal of any hostel mentioned here.

On several visits, I did like that everything was so clean and also the easy access to nature.

Open mid May to mid August.

Skid row or skid row area hostels

Avoid the depressing eastside of downtown, whenever possible. It’s remarkable that Canada, which prides itself on its social services, tolerates such an environment.

In this skid road, the poorest neighbourhood in Canada, according to HDTV, you'll find—

• Some 7,000 residents are hard drug addicts
• One in 3 residents is HIV positive
• 70% have hepatitis C

Amazingly, in a city voted the most livable in the world, you'll have to step over used syringes on streets in this area.

Skid row area hostels include those that mention proximity to Gastown, Chinatown, and the combo rail and bus Pacific Central Station (Amtrak, Greyhound, Via Rail Canada, etc.).

If a hostel or very cheap hotel sits on Cambie, Cordova, Hastings, Main, Pender, or Powell streets, it’s most likely in this area.

Public transit directions to city centre hostels

If you are arriving by bus or rail, you can easily transfer to a city centre hostel described above.

Use the elevated Main Street TransLink SkyTrain station that you see (look slightly to the left) when exiting Pacific Central Station. Take any westbound train to Burrard Station for the Hostelling International Vancouver Downtown or to Granville Station for the other city centre hostels and the guesthouse.

Or—slower—cross the square in front of the station to Main Street, but don’t cross Main. Board the northbound TransLink number 8 bus on Main Street to the city centre. Give the driver your address and he or she will let you off at the closest stop. Late night, when the other services don’t operate, use the N8 bus northbound.