In short
Vancouver is wedged between the Pacific and the Coast Mountains, and that physical constraint explains both its beauty and its housing prices: the city cannot spread anywhere.
Downtown occupies a peninsula. Gastown is its historic part, Yaletown the renovated one. Kitsilano, across False Creek, is the beach neighbourhood. Commercial Drive and Mount Pleasant are more working-class. The North Shore, beyond the bridge, is already mountain.
Arriving and getting around
The SkyTrain's Canada Line links the airport to the centre in twenty-five minutes. The SkyTrain is automated and covers the metropolitan area; the SeaBus crosses to North Vancouver and is part of the same network.
Vancouver is one of the North American cities where doing without a car is easiest.
Whistler is about two hours away on the Sea-to-Sky highway, one of the finest on the continent.
What it really costs
Vancouver is the most expensive city in Canada for housing, and the gap with Montreal or Calgary is considerable. It is the first parameter of a long stay.
British Columbia applies its own taxes, not included in displayed prices.
When to come
June–September: that is the dry, bright window, and it is clear-cut.
The rest of the year is wet — the city carries the nickname Raincouver without irony. Winters are mild, around zero to five degrees, and little snow falls in the city while the North Shore resorts, thirty minutes away, receive metres of it.
What nobody tells you
The Stanley Park seawall circles the park for nearly ten kilometres, flat, separated between walkers and cyclists and one-way for the latter. It is free and it is the best thing to do in the city.
Stanley Park is larger than Central Park and remains largely temperate rainforest, not a designed garden.
The Capilano suspension bridge is paid and very busy; the Lynn Canyon bridge, a little further along the North Shore, is free and far quieter.
Granville Island is not an island but a peninsula, and its public market is a genuine food hall.