Why Richmond might be a great home base for families traveling to Vancouver BC

Is Vancouver BC on your travel bucket list?  As someone who grew up in the city I can’t believe how much it has changed and grown over the years.  We now live in Seattle, about a three hour drive away, and we head back to Vancouver often to see family and it’s still one of my favorite cities in the world.  But sometimes when we stay in downtown Vancouver we don’t get a chance to visit all the outlying areas and it’s in these suburbs where so much of the magic of this city exists.  There are so many great cities that flow into the Greater Vancouver Regional District with an amazing public transportation network and it’s in these suburbs where you can see where so many locals actually live, play and work.  The city of Richmond is very unique in its population-over 50% of the population who lives there is Chinese and because of this there are many delicious Chinese restaurants and dessert places to visit.  Richmond BC is also a great place to hang out if you have time before or after a flight from YVR (Vancouver International Airport.). My sister and her family live in the Steveston area of Richmond and we head there often to hang out and explore.

Hotels in Richmond BC

If you don’t have relatives in Richmond and you have kids in tow a great place to stay might be the River Rock Casino Resort.  The pool here looks amazing and there is free parking and it’s near a skytrain station.  I visited Richmond a few years ago with tourism Richmond to celebrate Chinese New Year and I stayed at the Marriott Vancouver Airport Hotel and this was very convenient to Richmond Center shopping mall as well as a bunch of restaurants and cafes that I could walk to.  Taking the skytrain from Richmond into Vancouver is very easy and it’s around 20 minutes to get there which is probably as long as it might take you to find parking there if you drive.  I’ve also considered staying at the Richmond Sheraton Vancouver Aiport hotel because of its pool. Have you stayed here?

Richmond Public Market

The Richmond Market is one of my favorite places to explore in the city. I love wandering around the meat, veggie and bakery stands in the bottom and watching what people buy-it reminds me a lot of a non-touristy Granville Island (one of my favorite places in the world) and it makes me wish that more of our local malls had places where we could buy groceries too.  Upstairs we head to Peanuts where they have amazing bubble tea and little pancakes filled with delightful things. We found out recently that most bubble tea is gluten free so that might be an option if you have dietary restrictions. We also have been to the famous Xi’an Cuisine and if you ask them to make a vegetable only noodles this would be a good choice for someone who is vegetarian.  The Richmond Public Market is a great dining option for families with kids because you can try many different dishes in a casual setting and there is even a small playground outside too.

**A word to the wise-even though there is plentiful parking underneath the market, it can get nightmarishly difficult to get in and out.  I would advise paying for streetparking nearby.**

The Richmond Oval Experience(AKA the ROX) with kids

We stopped by the Richmond Oval Experience for the first time recently because we had some complimentary passes from Tourism Richmond and I can’t believe we haven’t been here before.  There is a humungous rock-climbing wall.  There is ice-skating.  There are basketball courts.  And there is a really cool Olympic Museum memorating the Olympic Games that took place in Vancouver in 2010 and it has some fun interactive athletic activities that our family had a great time exploring.  If you want to make a whole day of this adventure, there is a really great dumpling place nearby called Dinesty.  We were surprised at how reasonably priced our meal here was compared to Din Tai Fung which is a popular dumpling place in Seattle.  Milkcow Cafe is also nearby and has over the top ice cream desserts and bubble tea.  I really want to try their watermelon ice cream in the summer.

Have you been to Richmond BC? Do you have any favorite places in this city to visit?

(PS. we were given passes to the Richmond Oval Experience for the purpose of review and as always the opinions in this post are my own.)

Terumi

Terumi Pong is a Seattle-based family travel writer and mom of twin teenage boys.  She loves coffee and pastries, shopping local and looking for greener ways to live.  She is also known as Scout’s mom (Scout is a 5ish pound little black yorkie-poo)