Backpacking trip in Canada

in Vancouver and stayed 3 days in Coquitlam at my cousin's apartment. Coquitlam is in the surroundings of Vancouver. I had not heard about it before but it is a nice and peacefull place to stay. It is surrounded by mountains.

Vancouver and Coquitlam

The first day we arrived, we went to visit Vancouver city. I had heard a lot about this city and I was actually first a bit suprised of the "touristic center" of Vancouver, especially China Town, which was full of junkies. Gastown and Canada place were nice to go but there was not so much to see there. The second day was much nicer. We went to Stanly park and English Bay Beach. In Stanley park, we walked on nice path surrounded by huge and beautiful trees and with the view on the see and the harbour. English Bay Beach is a nice place to sit and eat someting (area is clean and looks very pretty). Lots of people go there and take a drink on the beach. 

The third day we enjoy the nature next to Coquitlam. We went hiking in the forest around a lake (Buntzen lake trail). It is a very nice and quiet place. You can also swim there and there is tables for picnics on the beach. After the hike, we went to breweries to drink some nice beers (one of them was Yellow dog brewery, next to Port Moody). 

Vancouver island

From day four to day six, we decided to visit Vancouver island. This island was very nice and we wanted to stay more, but we had other plans booked. To travel on the island, there are some bus but it is much more easier and faster to rent a car. We could not rent because we had no driving licence. We stayed in Victoria on day 4 and 5 in Ocean island inn hostel. This hostel was really nice to meet people from everywhere. You can have a nice breakfast and bedrooms and showers are clean.  

In Victoria, we walked in the city center which was cute. My favorite part was the harbour (fisherman's warf) where you have little colored houses floating on the water. You can eat there delicious fish and chips. Another visit I really enjoyed was the Butchart Gardens (next to Victoria). It consists in beautiful flowered gardens. You have to pay to get in but it was worth it as it was such a magic place to take a walk. 

On day six, we went to Nanaimo to stay a day and one night. I do not suggest Nanaimo at all, you have nothing interesting to see or to do. The hostel we went (Nanaimo Cambie Hostel) was ok but there was a party on the first floor and it was difficult to sleep with the noise. The next morning we took the ferry to go back to Vancouver. The view from the boat was very nice and when we arrived to the harbour (surrounded by mountains) it looked so beautiful. 

We slept one more night at my cousin's apartment and the day after we took a plane to go to Calgary and then a car to go to Banff (with a carpooling app: poparide).

Banff

Banff was really nice and beautiful but also very to tourisitic. Thanks to a facebook group (Canada backapackers) we decided to join two german girls who had rent a car. Having a car was really useful to travel in the Rockies. The hostel we stay in ( (HI banff) was cute and confortable. 

Around Banff you can see lots of beautiful lakes with beautiful blue colors. We did some nice hikes. However, we could not make all the hikes we wanted because some paths were still closed because of the snow (we were in May!). Lake Louise and Lake Moraine are the most touristic places so there were lots of people. We did a small hike around lake Louise which was very beautiful and it allowed us to go far from the crowd. To choose the other hikes, we went to the tourism office. They suggested us nice hikes and also they told us which were accessible. We also enjoyed taking some beers and having dinner in the center of Banff. Banff is a lively little town where it is possible to meet people and party with hikers or seasonal employees. It was also very nice to walk around Banff and go to Vermilion lake. We also did a hike that bring us to a place where we had a beautiful view of Banff and the area.  In the area of Banff, we also saw bears and dears.  Before leaving this beautiful place, we went to Fairmont Banff Springs to have a drink. It is such a very beautiful hotel and it was very nice to go even just for a drink.

Calgary

The last day we went to Calgary because we had to take our plane to Toronto from there. We took advantage of it to visit the city. Actually I found Calgary not interesting at all. However, we enjoyed going to the cinema.

Toronto

After Banff, we stayed 3 days in Toronto in an Airbnb. We liked this city a lot as it changed from our past steps. Toronto is a busy city that looks quite American. Yonge-Dundas Square looks very much like Time square in New-York. It has a big shopping center called Toronto Eaton center. To visit the city, we decided to walk a lot through the different areas. So, we saw the distillery district which is quite nice to have a bear, we went also to Saint Lawrence market and Kensington market. We also enjoyed Graffiti Alley where you can observe lots of street arts. To get a nice view of Toronto, we went to Toronto islands. Nathan Phillips Square is also a nice place to see and get a picture with the name of the city. As we heard that the Ripley’s aquarium was worth to be seen, we went to visit it. It was nice, there were also structures for kids so if you have kids, I think it is a nice place to visit. As we had already visited Niagara waterfalls and the CN tower we did not go to those places. However, if you want to visit Niagara Falls, you should be aware that there are many people going on the boat to see the waterfalls and you should know that it takes time to get to the falls.