A YouTube travel vlog by Kara and Nate Buchanan documenting their first impressions of Vancouver during the start of a two-week road trip (Vancouver → Calgary). The vlog covers their van/camper setup, a long bike loop around Stanley Park, lunch at Granville Market, a brief (uneasy) pass through Chinatown, a visit to Gastown, evening return to their campground, and a giveaway announced to thank subscribers. They mention reaching 400,000 subscribers and give specific entry instructions for the giveaway (email-list sign-up with an optional Instagram follow for an extra entry); the winner will be picked on Sunday, December 2nd.
Questions this video answers
November 25, 2018.
400,000 subscribers.
Their travel gear: 'Wandered provoke backpacks and the bigger carry on suitcase.'
Click the link below, join the hosts' email list; optionally follow on Instagram for one extra entry.
Randomly on Sunday, December 2nd.
Chapters
Before we start today's video, we wanted to say a quick huge thank you for 400,000 subscribers.
To show our appreciation, we are going to be doing a giveaway. So if you're interested in that, make sure to stick around to the end of the video where we're going to give you all the details.
Thank you.
Wow. Okay. We are looking for a white van parked in zone one.
Oh, sweet home.
I think it's bigger than I thought it was going to be.
How do I get in?
Wow.
It seriously smells like a new house. I did not think that I was gonna be able to stand up like this. What do you think of the bed?
It's memory foam. And I am so looking forward to the next two weeks. Yeah, it's like luxury camping.
Woohoo.
There's so much, so much more room in this thing than I thought. And I love the wood ceilings.
Look.
We even have artwork hung up on the wall. And a plant.
Aw, nice touch.
Silverware bots.
French press. Yes. This guy is so pretty right now. I am super impressed. Our friends Heath and Alyssa have invited us up to Canada for an epic two week road trip from Vancouver to Calgary. But before we like actually hit the road and leave, we wanted to spend a couple days here exploring the city.
Heath and Alyssa have already been to Vancouver a bunch of times and Alyssa is feeling a little under the weather today, unfortunately, so we're on our own. But we get to borrow Heath and Alyssa's bike. So we're exploring Vancouver by bike today.
Have a tire?
One tire if we can figure it out.
Two tires.
Wow, these are nice.
They will be if we can get them off this thing.
Pedals.
All right. Look at that. Are they the same? E? Yo, we need you no matter which wheel goes with which bike. No. So. Oh, you want brakes? We'll see.
We're having some technical difficulties.
You can't, can. You're like tightening it and I'm. Oh, wait, wait, hold on, wait. No, no, I know how it goes. Oh, I got it, I got it, I got it. It doesn't work. There we go. That seems right.
Okay. Hopefully we put these things together right. We have a lot of miles to cover today.
I'm so tired.
I was out of shape.
Wow. Canada.
We've only been out and about for like a few minutes, but I'm already in love with Vancouver and the people are so nice and everybody's outside and there's always bike lanes.
It's amazing. So we are starting the day with a ride around Stanley park, which we've heard was voted the best urban park in the world, and we can see why. It is a thousand acres of nature that sits just like right in the heart of the city. And it's absolutely beautiful.
It's crazy. I mean, we're like in the middle of the city and everybody, I guess, is on their lunch break. Like, it's Friday in the middle of the day. Maybe they're all tourists, I don't know.
But it's super unique because, like, you can be out here riding around in nature and the park is actually its own own island. And then you can see the skyline. So you have like, nature and then like also the beautiful city skyline.
The air is so fresh and so clean.
So fresh and so clean. Clean.
We just finished our loop around Stanley park, which should have taken us probably 20 minutes. Ended up taking us two plus hours because we took a thousand pictures and videos.
But we've ended at this cute little beach and we're sitting on these giant logs taking a break, soaking in the sunshine. Before we get back on the bikes, we are driving to the Granville market, which is supposed to be a really hit place to get some lunch.
Smells fishy.
She was so cute. The Internet was right. This place is super hip. There's tons of restaurants, restaurants from all different kinds of cuisines. And the great news is half of the restaurants are Asian. One thing that we did not know about Vancouver is how big of an Asian influence there is, which is great for us because we love Asian food. So I got some chicken and noodles. We are both so hungry because our bike ride took so long. I cannot wait to dig into this.
You know, when you're so hungry, you just can't think straight. You just have to order the first thing that you see. That was me with this pizza, but it is called the Canadian, so, like, it's kind of local. Maybe.
Pepperoni, bacon, mushroom and peppers. Like the four best things you could ever put on pizza. I haven't been that hangry in a long time.
It's because we biked too long. It's getting super heavy.
To be fair, it is 3:15 and this is lunch.
Also to be fair, I'm the reason it took so long to get here because of the camera.
So we haven't been here for that long. But so far in our one day in Vancouver, our first impressions are, one, it's absolutely beautiful. Some people call it the Hollywood of Canada because there's mountains, beaches, water, city. It is so cool. And two, the coffee is strong and delicious and I love it.
So it's like this interesting mix. It to me feels like a combination of, like, Portland, Maine, San Francisco, Sydney, Australia, maybe with like, a little bit of Hong Kong thrown in there. Like, squish those four cities together. And to me, you have Vancouver.
It's fascinating. We read that Vancouver has the highest amount of Asian people per capita than any other city in North America, which.
Is why we're heading to Chinatown.
We're cutting off a couple miles of pedaling, and we are taking the ferries somewhere close to Chinatown.
We made it.
We could have just been in the wrong part of Chinatown, but that was, like, super sketchy.
We were in a weird part of town for a minute.
We just put the camera away and, like, pedaled out of there as fast as we could. I saw at least 20 people who were, like, strung out on drugs and couldn't stand up. Yeah.
And all these sirens were happening. So we just drove as fast as possible. And we're gonna move on to our next destination.
There may be a good part of Chinatown. Like, don't take. This is like our review of it. But we just got out of there.
We took the wrong way there.
That was just weird. Yeah.
Okay, let's go.
All right. We're going to Gastown instead of Chinatown. Remember, that's like another hip place to be, hopefully with less people strung out on drugs.
Okay. We have made it to Gastown, which, it turns out, is just like one street over from Chinatown. So it went from, like, super shady to super hip really quickly and a ton of people. And we've learned that the reason that Gastown is named Gastown has nothing to do with, like, gas or petroleum, but instead, it's named for a steamboat driver who opened the first saloon here in Vancouver. His name was Gassy Jack.
And that is the world's first steam powered clock.
So we had all intentions of spending more time exploring Gastown. We actually came here specifically to get sushi, but we just realized that, like, the sun is about to set and.
We don't have lights on our bikes. We already don't have helmets. Not on purpose. Our campground didn't have any kids.
I wear your helmet.
I always wear a helmet. We just didn't have any. So we've been going really slow. We're gonna have to get back fast.
Yeah. So, yeah, we're hightailing it back to the campground because we are not close. So here's our campground. We start the morning by driving over the bridge. Then we made a full circle around the island, and then we came over here. And this is the Granville market where we had lunch. And then we took the ferry down here and we rode our bikes to Chinatown. And now we're gonna attempt to make it back. I have a good feeling it's gonna be like two hours and not 30 minutes for us. It's been quite the day. Okay, I'm feeling good. We've made it out of the congested city. We are on a beautiful bike path that rides by the water. The sun is setting. It's not quite dark yet. The weather is perfect. We cannot ask for a better ride home. This has been such a good day.
Seriously. And it's not cold at all.
Again, I don't know if you can hear it, but she said seriously. And it's not cold at all yet.
Wow.
One more hill. Almost there. We've almost made it. It's not even dark yet. No problem. Wow. The city is beautiful at night.
Oh.
Almost stalled the bridges.
Wow. 400,000 subscribers. This has been such a crazy year.
Back in January, we spent two days in the Omani desert, and when we got back after having no service, we figured out we had hit hundred thousand subscribers. After two years of vlogging full time, here we are less than 11 months later and we now have over 400,000 of you joining us on our journey to 100 countries.
To say thank you, we're going to be doing a giveaway for our 100k giveaway. There are some skeptics out there because we gave away a trip to Everest Base Camp. So for all you people who are doubting if we actually gave away a trip, here's a picture of Randy on his way to everspace.
This giveaway might not be quite as epic as a trip to Everest Base Camp, but we do have something for you that we think that you're really going to like. And that's our exact same travel setup.
So the last three years, we've each tried a few different bags and we are finally so happy with both our gear backpack and our luggage. So we have the.
Wandered provoke backpacks and the bigger carry on suitcase. And we're going to be giving away one of each of these to one lucky person.
But it won't be these. They'll have a lot less bumps and bruises. We'll buy you a new one. You'll have to take our old stuff.
And you can choose your own color and everything. But we're so excited because we both are so obsessed with both of these and think that they are the best for travelers.
We are going to keep this super simple to enter. All you have to do is click the link below, get on our email list, and then you'll have the option to follow us on Instagram to get one one extra entry. But that's it. Super simple.
And we're picking the winner randomly on Sunday, December 2nd.
You will be notified via email, so if you're not on the email list, you won't hear who won.
Also, this is not a sponsored giveaway. We are buying both of these bags just to show everybody how appreciative we are and how truly thankful we are for the support because we could not be doing this without you.
Thank you for 400,000.
So.
Planes are so.
That is fascinating.
Look at their toenails.
It tastes like a burnt cinnamon cracker with some sugar. Slightly disappointed. It's one of those things that maybe it'll grow on you if want you eat a couple more. Let's go.
