VICE Guide to Vancouver

  • DOs and DONTs

    One great thing about the West Coast is the sheer hangoutability of the place. Taking a picture of your buddy wearing a huge pair of pants is considered having done something that day and it means you can go back inside and drink another six-pack in...

  • Barely Legal Aliens

    Take a stroll down Robson or Seymour Street at any given time and you’re bound to stumble into a disoriented foreign student looking to make friends with a “real” Canadian. A lot of these students are seriously homesick and disappointed with their...

  • Down and Out in Vancouver

    How many places do you know of with a government-sanctioned shooting gallery, where you can do massive whacks of cocaine and/or heroin without fear of prosecution or harassment? How about an otherwise pleasant outdoor marketplace where drugs are...

  • Getting Wasted on the Cheap

    When you’ve only got $20 and you refuse to just pick up a couple eight-packs of pilsner to slam back alone on a bench in the rain, it’s time to head for East Van (or at least Mid).

  • Guide to Vancouver's Live Music Scene

    The days when bands like DOA and the Subhumans made Vancouver a major player in North America's underground music scene may have already slipped into the past, but a new generation of artists has cropped up in recent years, threatening to push the city...

  • Riottown

    At any given moment a riot can break out in Vancouver. Michael Barnholden wrote a 112-page book about it recently called 'Reading the Riot Act,' but like anyone who's spent too much time in school, he keeps trying to explain everything in terms of...

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  • Guide to the Strip Clubs of Vancouver

    Remember in Twin Peaks how the guys are always ducking out across the border to go to that big Canadian brothel? Vancouver is kind of like the city-version of that place: A near-enough respite from the asinine prudishness of the Northwest U.S.'s...

  • The VICE Guide to Vancouver

    Vancouver is a wonderfully fucked-up city. It has the most temperate climate of anywhere in Canada. You’ve got every kind of recreation at your fingertips. It’s constantly in the top five best places in the world in which to live. And it’s a drug town.

  • Area Guide

    The term "skid row" most likely originated in Vancouver, though there’s some dispute between us and Seattle over the true first coinage. Not really much of a competition. Who'd want to lay claim to that?