Want to move to Vancouver? These 8 realities you'll face as a newcomer may change your mind
Moving to Vancouver is guaranteed to put you face-to-face with some tough realities, and surviving your first year in the city means getting comfortable with all that makes the West Coast *unique* from the rest of the country.
If you've made it to that point and claim Vancouverite status — congrats! Most likely, you have now discovered the slightly obsessive nature of the city's "wellness culture," the kind of anxiety that you can only get when parallel parking on 4th Avenue, and the shocking cost of a Whistler season pass.
Still, there's a list of other things that you will only really understand after living here for a while. So here they are – eight harsh truths that you'll inevitably learn the hard way after 12 months on the Wet Coast (get it?).
The transit system is a nightmare
If you disagree with this point, you've never waited for the 16 bus in Kerrisdale on a wet February day and it shows.
Everyone loves to brag about how "green" Vancouver is, but our transit system often feels anything but energy-efficient or optimized. Buses don't always come when they say they will, the SkyTrain randomly shuts down for "track maintenance," and sometimes, when the TransLink is full, it won't stop to pick you up, no matter how long you've been waiting there or how rainy it is.
Yes, technically it's possible to get around without a car. But if you've been out here grinding out the bus routes for a year, you probably know that an Evo, Uber, or bike is the better option.
Making friends will take effort (and possibly improv)
Vancouver has a reputation for being a little bit cliquey. This is partly true. If you walk up to a group of friends that are sitting in a booth at a bar and randomly try to strike up conversation it will probably be perceived as strange. For better or worse (definitely worse) that's not how it works here.
My advice is to join a rec league, or sign up for an improv class or a pottery workshop. An acting class, perhaps! That's how I met my closest friends when I moved back to Vancouver after living away for five years — in a room full of young adults performing Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (humbling). But hey, don't knock it till you try it.
The rain isn't the problem, it's the relentlessness
Everyone can romanticize the rain for a day here and there, especially during hoa hoa hoa season (refer to the Twilight movie franchise for this reference).
It's nice to cozy up with a book, tea, candle. Watch a movie. Even go for a rainy forest walk on an afternoon where you're feeling inspired. But let me tell you — as someone who's lived through about 20 Vancouver fall-winter-spring seasons in my lifetime — that romantic notion quickly fades.
The relentlessness of the grey-rain eventually wears us down and you'll suddenly find yourself ordering $200 SAD lamps on Amazon. Or, if you're me, spending too much money on an all-inclusive to Hawaii and claiming it's a necessity for my mental health.
You must make dinner reservations in advance
Spontaneity? Sorry, in Vancouver we don't know her.
If you want to stop in somewhere for cheap eats, of course you won't have too much of a problem. However, if you're looking for a romantic evening out or are planning a cute girls night, you'll want to book a reservation ahead of time before OpenTable only offers you the world's most unreasonable eating times: 4:45pm or 10:15pm. I'll repeat this for the boys on Hinge in the back: book the reservation ahead of time.
Local favourites like Ask for Luigi open their reservations on the first of every month for the entirety of the month and all the good weekend times are typically booked up within a couple of hours. Walk-ins are for people who enjoy disappointment (or know the owners — if that's the case, you can ignore this whole point).
Lock up your bike
Vancouver is extremely bike-friendly — we've got designated lanes, scenic routes, and that awfully smug feeling of saving the planet one pedal and ugly yet aerodynamic skinsuit at a time.
However, if you're thinking about cruising downtown and leaving your bike while you have a couple post-work drinks...think again. If you lock your bike up improperly, be prepared to return to a wheel or handlebar missing. Even if you lock it up properly, there's still a very high likelihood your seat will be gone when you're back.
If you love your bike, keep it safe in a storage locker. And I apologize in advance to all the girlfriends of mountain bikers fighting the good fight to ensure their muddy two-wheeler doesn't end up in the kitchen...but if your storage locker isn't secure, the house is most likely the safest option.
Finding an apartment is even harder than you think
The Vancouver rental market is a little bit like The Hunger Games. It takes a lot of luck at first, a decent amount of grit once you're in it, and a good samaritan like Peeta tossing you a piece of bread in the rain to find a reasonably priced and enjoyable spot. May the odds be ever in your favour.
Best case scenario, your new rec league teammate (because as we previously discussed, you were brave and joined a team to make friends) will know someone who knows someone that's moving out of a half-decent place where you can be grandfathered in.
If not, you'll resort to scrolling Facebook Marketplace at 2 a.m., and most likely opting to move in with roommates, your partner, or both to live semi-affordably. It's fine. You'll bond over shared financial trauma and passive-aggressive dishwashing schedules — this, in a way, is also a path to making new friends.
Do not cross the Lions Gate Bridge at rush hour
Every new Vancouverite has this formative experience. You take a day trip up to Whistler to ski. How cool that I live in a place so close to the mountains?! You "shred", you grab a bite to eat, you post an Instagram story from the chair lift, and then you hit the road so you get home at a reasonable time, right? Wrong.
Instead, you're about to face world's worst traffic situation — I'd like to introduce you to the Lions Gate bridge. A place where about a trillion lanes, for no particular reason other than a massive miss by our urban planners, merge into one, single, snail-paced path.
If you're lucky enough to have just moved here and have stumbled upon this article, don't ever plan to cross the bridge between Monday and Friday, 3 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. You're welcome.
You'll complain constantly, but never really want to leave
At some point, it hits you: you've become one of those Vancouver people. You'll gripe about housing, traffic, and the gentrification of Main Street, yet the idea of moving anywhere else makes you panic.
Because for all its flaws — the rain, rent, and robbery — Vancouver still somehow wins you over. The nature grounds you, the sushi spoils you, and the sunsets make you forget every single time TransLink let you down.
The views expressed in this Opinion article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Narcity Media.
Bears in Whistler, B.C.
