So, flashback to the summer when we spent a week in Vancouver fully embracing the stealthy habits that come with city camping. We had an awesome time relishing in city life while still having our humble abode to come home to. Now, fast-forward to November where it gets dark before 5PM and it’s just cold enough to not want to sit outside. You seek refuge in bars, restaurants and coffee shops blending in with all the other city dwellers who want to get out of the house while the dollar signs add up and your wallet starts to get thinner and thinner. Alternatively, you can sit in the van parked on a residential street trying not to make noise or run the lights or furnace – delightful. By no means are we asking for sympathy since we’re well aware that it’s been our choice to live in our vehicle and fortunately, we could live in a traditional apartment if we wanted to. We balance out these less enjoyable times with crazy adventures and a very flexible lifestyle that most people don’t have. In any case, I’m still going to proceed with sharing the hardships of city camping in the winter while you slide the bow across the world’s smallest violin.

Vancouver is an amazing place with a really nice balance of city and nature that makes for a great launch pad to the mountains, the beach and plenty of forested areas. Over the years, many people have caught on to how nice it is and consequently, a lot of people want to live there. Rental and housing prices are sky-high and there are plenty of restrictions on overnight parking yet there is a whole community of people who live in RVs and campers around the city. Very similar to Portland, we always favour parking in the Kitsilano area because the quiet streets are littered with Westfalias and no one seems to care. In the summer this was awesome because we could spend the evening at the beach or the park and only head back to the van when it was dark and we’d probably be going to bed soon anyway. Although the temperatures were still undeniably mild, it’s still not the most comfortable to sit on a cold, wet log on the beach in the dark while it rains and hovers around 0 degrees (32°F). Naturally, we didn’t want to make a racket cooking and doing the dishes so we’d spend time at bars and restaurants and end up spending more eating out than we’d like. It almost felt like part of the money we were spending on that beer or that burger was just for a place to sit and a bathroom to use. Not to mention that there are a ton of great restaurants around Vancouver that made it hard to say no…

Even trickier than the evenings was the daytime when we’d finish up a coffee shop workday early and just want to hang out at home but the van was cold and dark and the volume at which you could hear pedestrians passing by made it clear how well they could hear you too. Again, not a sob story but it was the first time we really felt out of place. Sure, we have friends around the city who we’d frequently hang out with but you can’t rely on living room-hopping every day. For once, we struggled with feeling “at home” inside of our own house and that’s certainly not a great feeling. We even ventured around pockets of North Van and Commercial Drive where somewhat derelict RVs that haven’t moved in months line the industrial streets and give a clear indication that no one’s going to bother you for sleeping in your vehicle and still just didn’t feel comfortable. So why didn’t you just leave you might ask. Well, we had some scattered plans and work-related things to do in the city while counting down the days until some friends from the east were headed to town for a couple days before catching opening day in Whistler. On that note, let’s switch gears and focus on the positive experiences we had outside of feeling like complete vagrants.

We ate a ton of delicious food and probably got our season’s worth of ramen (is there ever too much?) while getting a chance to catch up with some friends we haven’t seen in a while and don’t get to see often. We checked out Queen Elizabeth Park, which was way nicer than we could have anticipated and it also had a very van-friendly street bordering it that we called home for a few nights. We finally bit the bullet and invested in some new batteries which took a hit on the wallet but were well worth the expense. With the change in seasons and the need for more lights and more furnace, our old battery really fell short. Check out our updated solar set-up post for all the technical deets.

Finally, once our cross-country buds arrived, we had a great time hanging out and parted ways always wishing we had more time together. As our time in the city came to a close, we felt equally excited and a tad nervous to venture over to the Island and truly begin our winter. Needing steady internet and conveniences like showers and groceries in the mildest temperatures we could wrangle, we figured we’d stay around Victoria and Nanaimo and hoped that our feelings of discomfort after being in the city for so long in Vancouver wouldn’t just carry over to new streets with different names.

Sailing into Horseshoe Bay on a warm May evening made for a pretty spectacular welcome back onto mainland BC. All of the smaller islands surrounding Vancouver Island and the luxurious shacks that sit atop them sparkled in the setting sun as our ferry docked about 15 minutes north of West Van. We didn’t want to deal with driving through the city after a long day cruising across the island so we headed north toward Squamish to hunker down for the night. Highway 99, or the Sea-to-Sky Highway, is kind of like a continuation of America’s Pacific Coast Highway that skims the rugged coastline all the way to Squamish before surrounding you in mountains as you head into Whistler. BC is full of scenic drives but this route in particular is pretty special.

We found a spot just off the highway with a glorious view of the islands (think Canada, not Galapagos) and the seemingly calm waters that separated us. Being so close to Vancouver, this was a fairly popular spot to camp with a small “village” of vanners forming as more people set up shop for the night. We’re not big fans of waking up early so luckily most of the folks had already set out for the day by the time we rolled out of bed and we had the views all to ourselves.

Over the next week, we got our fair dose of city life as we caught up with lots of friends and family in Vancouver. In fact, we experienced the ultimate Vancouver dream: living on a swanky street in Kitsilano lined with multi-million dollar houses while being steps from the beach and tons of bars and restaurants – oh and, for $0 in rent. City camping is not for everyone and definitely gets old pretty quick but it made for a great way to keep our expenses down while spending our days wandering around a big city. It can seem a little daunting at first to pick a spot where you’ll actually be able to sleep the night and not be woken up by relentless street noise or the fear of police knocking on your window in the middle of the night, so here are a few tips we’ve learned for successful stealth camping:

• Arrive after the sun goes down and already be ready for bed. This way, you don’t need to exit the van to go to the bathroom or have lights on to see your toothbrush. We like to stay in a public parking lot, like a grocery store or city park, and do all of our bedtime duties there so we can keep pretty low-key once we arrive at our spot. With this method, we’ll head out in the AM so folks might not have even noticed we were there at all.
• Otherwise, park the van in the day, put all the curtains down and leave. Leave for the whole day. People seem to be much less sketched out by a van in the daytime that seems to just be “forgotten” by nightfall. Nothing says CIA like a cargo van with a fake florist company’s logo rolling up at 7PM and not moving. In Key West, we parked near a hotel and left for the day to be tourists and didn’t return until after midnight – this made the van seem more like any other commuter vehicle than our house.
• Don’t let anyone see you enter/exit the vehicle. In line with previous points, you either leave for the day and don’t return until people go to bed or you arrive when people are already in bed. Don’t make it seem like your van is your home base and that you’re quite obviously living out of your vehicle.
• If possible, opt for a spot that’s not directly in front of a single-family home. We like to park in front of apartment buildings or be across the street from churches or businesses so it seems like it could be anyone’s vehicle. Are the folks in unit 2A having visitors? Who knows? Also, who cares? By the time anyone actually pursues it, you’ll be gone.
• Finally the obvious ones: Don’t make excessive noise. Use minimal lights. Make sure people can’t see your stuff when you’re gone for the day but make sure that what people can see is clean and tidy. Essentially, fly under the radar the best you can. No need to draw any extra attention to your rig or become the eyesore of a neighbourhood with take-out containers and receipts filling the dash. Also, decreasing the likelihood of getting broken into is always the name of the game so don’t have anything worthwhile visible – we even make it a point to not leave spare change on the front console.

We spent the week working while eating good food, hanging out at the beach and catching up with old friends. We even dabbled in “vegan chicken wings”, AKA cauliflower wings, that were way tastier than we would have ever imagined – and that says a lot coming from two devoted carnivores. Being such an expensive city to live in, we were pretty lucky to bring our accommodations with us and have nice enough weather to walk EVERYWHERE. That is one thing that I love about cities, an hour walk to meet up with your friend turns into an adventure in itself with all the interesting things to see and colourful folks to people watch (in the least creepy way possible). Of course the main downside about being in the city is that you can’t help but spend money – how can you turn down a fresh bowl of delicious ramen when all you have in the van is Mr. Noodles?! That being said, we’ll just focus on the money we saved in accommodation and transportation and not the money we spent on food…

The time finally came where we were sick of the city and desperately wanted to be back in the woods. We left the sky-high Vancouver gas prices behind and drove past Chilliwack to Hope, BC where we found ourselves a spot on the Skagit River. Given the season, the rivers were quite high as the snow from the mountains was in prime melting time but this had to be the fastest moving river I’ve ever seen. It looked like someone put this river on fast-forward and just left it. Anyway, it felt good to be back in nature until we took a look around the campsite and it was covered in trash. California was bad for litterbugs but this was downright disgusting – the previous campers had attempted to burn all their unneeded camping gear so the fire pit had an ashy camping chair in it while wrappers and beer boxes were scattered throughout. The kicker though, was that they left two chicken cutlets on a cooking grill on the fire pit. You don’t need to be all that “bear aware” to know that that’s not a good idea – ever. So we cleaned it all up and finished their botched burning job to leave the spot as a campsite instead of a pigsty.

Coastal BC has been amazing so we’re stoked to head into the mountains and start exploring the interior. Summer is upon us and Canada is full of what we call Crown Land (similar to BLM lands in the States) so we’re gearing up for a few months of amazing free camping. Follow along on our new Camping Directory where we’ll continuously share all the hidden gems we uncover. Shoot us a message or leave a comment with any must-see spots anywhere from BC to Newfoundland – we’re doing it all!