Vancouver

Pacific port city where dense downtown neighbourhoods sit between Coast Mountains, forest, and saltwater.

Vancouver sits on a peninsula between mountains and the sea, with snow-capped Coast Mountains rising directly from saltwater inlets and forests pushing right up against the downtown core. The combination gives the city a distinctive quality — you can ski in the morning, bike a seawall in the afternoon, and eat some of the best Asian food in North America for dinner. It is consistently ranked among the most liveable cities in the world, and the locals — a high proportion of whom moved here from somewhere else — generally agree.

The city is shaped by water and parkland. Stanley Park, jutting out north of downtown, is one of the great urban parks of the world: 1,000 acres of old-growth forest, a 9km seawall around its perimeter, and the Vancouver Aquarium at its centre. Granville Island, under the south end of the Granville Bridge, packs a public market, a working concrete plant, dozens of small shops and the city's best aimless wander into a few square blocks. English Bay and Kitsilano Beach anchor a string of usable beaches that frame the West End and West Side.

The neighbourhoods reward exploration. Gastown, the city's oldest district, has cobblestone streets and the famous steam clock; the heritage warehouses now hold restaurants and design shops. Chinatown, just east of Gastown, is one of the largest and oldest in North America. Yaletown, a former rail-yard district, has converted brick warehouses into the city's most fashionable bar and restaurant strip. Commercial Drive in East Vancouver is the bohemian, multicultural counterpart — Italian cafes, Ethiopian restaurants and indie shops.

Across the inlet, the North Shore rises sharply into mountain. Grouse Mountain has a gondola to a summit ski area with skyline views over the city; Capilano Suspension Bridge and the Lynn Canyon footbridge swing high above old-growth forest. The Museum of Anthropology at UBC, on Point Grey, holds one of the world's finest collections of Northwest Coast First Nations art and is reason enough alone to come to Vancouver.

The food scene reflects the city's demographics — Vancouver has the largest Chinese community in Canada outside Toronto, and the dim sum, Cantonese seafood and modern Chinese cooking in Richmond are world-class. Sushi is similarly excellent, and the Pacific Northwest tradition of seafood-and-craft-beer is in full swing across Yaletown, Gastown and the brewery district on the east side.