5 Days in Kamloops, Vancouver, and Richmond, BC

Day 1: Kamloops

We left Jasper bright and early this morning to begin our 5 hour drive to Kamloops. It’s our last time zone change of this road trip and as soon as we crossed the province border, we switched back to Pacific Time. We knew we’d be back in the Bay so soon but this time change made it feel much more real.

We stayed in Kamloops primarily to break up the drive to Vancouver because it otherwise would have been 9 hours. We got there with some time to spare before check-in so we ate lunch at a Vietnamese restaurant and went to a few stores to continue my search for a rain jacket. I didn’t find anything (again).

Our Airbnb had a backyard deck that our hosts graciously let us use to air out our camping gear. It was so cold last night that our tent was wet and frosty when we packed it up so we just wanted to let it dry. We had an amazing shower and stayed in the rest of the evening to rest.

Day 2: Richmond

The first Sunday of the NFL season. The Seahawks played at 1pm so we packed up and drove a few hours to Richmond to an affiliate bar and watched the game alongside other Seahawks fans. They lost and we were all full of bar food.

We checked into our Airbnb which was hard to find because our host didn’t give us good directions. We stuffed our clothes in the washer and ran it while we rested.

In the evening, after all the games ended, we went to the Richmond Night Market. There was a long line to get in, but it moved fast. We didn’t expect to pay $8 per person for an entrance fee, though. This night market was really just for Instagram and TikTok. There were a ton of neon lights, random installations, expensive totes and other things that people would buy at these markets, overpriced food stalls that had long lines, and bar stalls blasting loud electronic music. We stayed away from anything that looked too “Instagrammy” like the cup noodles with a short rib on top, basic juices or boba in a cute cup, and a ramen donut. The food we did try was solid but nothing phenomenal. In fact, when recalling our day for this entry, we totally forgot that we went to this night market so that goes to show how memorable it is.

Day 3: Vancouver

Our building has a gym so we went there for a workout and it felt so good. We’d been solely hiking for the past few weeks so it was great to use some gym equipment with earbuds in.

We explored a little bit of Vancouver the rest of the day. I’d been twice before and didn’t have a strong desire to hit up the touristy spots again, but we wanted to drive around so Keon could see. We ended up in Little Italy and walked around Commercial Dr, getting Cuban food for lunch and ice cream for dessert. We drove through downtown and other parts of Vancouver on our way back to Richmond before stopping by an H-Mart to get groceries for dinner. It ended up being too pricey for our liking so we drove to the T&T Supermarket near our Airbnb and shopped there. Much better.

We made spring rolls for dinner while watching football and then caught up on a lot of television and gaming.

Day 4: Richmond

Today was a super chill day. We’re honestly still tired from all the camping we’ve been doing. The weather was also gloomy so it was a good excuse to mostly stay inside.

We did go shopping a bit in the mall across the street—no luck on that rain jacket, of course. The Richmond Public Market was also nearby so we went there for lunch and did a mini food crawl of sorts. A lot of the stalls were closed today, including a rice roll stall that I really wanted to try, so we said we’d come back tomorrow morning before driving back to the States. We still had a lot of leftover spring roll ingredients so we bought some roasted pork to bring back for dinner and spent the rest of the day (literally hours) on our laptops and watching TV. Oh, and we went to the gym then booked the rest of the accommodations for our road trip. We’ve got less than 2 weeks left!

Day 5: Richmond

We went back to Richmond Public Market to check out the stalls that were closed yesterday. We thought we we’d be able to spend all of our Canadian cash here but still had a lot left over, so we went to a bakery near our Airbnb and bought a bunch of sweet buns to take on the road. We said goodbye to Canada and drove over the border to Washington state where our first stop would be North Cascades National Park.