Howdy all!
Every year we welcome members of the WordPress community who travel from out of town to attend our WordCamp. We try to make it easier for everyone to attend so here is our annual run down of advice and recommendation for accommodation and transportation within Vancouver.
Arriving in Vancouver
If you are arriving via air, it’s inexpensive and easy to get from the airport to any Downtown destination taking the Canada Line rapid transit rail link from the airport. In almost all cases the cost from the airport is about $9 and $3 on the way back. Ticketing machines accept bills, coins, debit and credit cards. It takes about 30 minutes to get from the Airport to Downtown. Cabs from the airport to Downtown usually cost about $40 and take about the same time, sometimes longer when there’s bad traffic. Public transit in Vancouver is offered by Translink. Google Maps offers reliable public transit directions.
If you are traveling via train or bus you will arrive at Pacific Central Station which is adjacent to the Main Street Skytrain station. There is construction on that station right now but you can still catch trains to get you downtown.
Hotel Recommendations
We’ve gathered a few hotel recommendations for you:
Sandman Hotel, rooms starting around $160 per night
St Regis Hotel, rooms starting around $179 per night
Rosedale on Robson, rooms starting around $170 per night
Holiday Inn Vancouver, rooms starting around $175 per night
Hotel Le Soleil, rooms starting around $186 per night
Opus Boutique Hotel, rooms starting around $270
Fairmont Vancouver, rooms starting around $360 per night
All of these hotels are within walking distance of the WordCamp venue.
There is also a number of great apartments/rooms for rent on AirBnb, raging from $45 to $250+ per night. While we cannot recommend specific rentals, we’ve heard great things about using AirBnb and do recommend the service as a whole.
Transportation information
As a reminder, the venue for WordCamp Vancouver 2014 is BCIT Downtown Campus located at 555 Seymour Street – Vancouver, V6B 3H6. The venue is in the heart of Downtown Vancouver and within walking distance of several hotels.
We recommend walking, biking or using public transit to get to BCIT Downtown Campus. If you use public transit, please get off at Granville station (using expo/millenium line) or Vancouver City Center (using Canada line).
If you are arriving by car, please note that the BCIT parking lot will be closed that day. There are other public parking lots nearby, notably on Seymour St. Parking on the street may be difficult and/or costly.
Use these tools to help plan your trip to the BCIT Downtown Campus:
Map
We’ve prepared a helpful map of many key and recommended locations around Vancouver. Including the airport, venue, the after party location and all of the recommended hotels from above. We’ve also added a number of recommended activities, restaurants and attractions for out of own attendees. Please note that BCIT, the WordCamp venue is indicated by the blue WordPress logo whereas the after party location is indicated by the grey logo.
Will there be a contributor day on Sunday? If so, I want to make sure I book an extra night.
Hi Ian, great question!
Yes there will be a contributor day on Sunday. We would love to have you there.
Thanks Flynn, see you there 🙂
Hi Flynn,
In the past couple of days I’ve heard from a couple of
out-of-town participants (my friends) who are still a bit confused by your airport bus-and-cabs paragraph. (My callers thought that they might have to take an airport bus AND a cab). I suggest that you modify the cabs line to something like
“… As an alternative, you can take a cab… these usually cost about $40 ….” etc etc.
It might also be helpful to provide information for participants arriving at the airport after about midnight. These travelers will have to go outside of the terminal, and walk about 5 minutes to the south end of the terminal, in order to catch the late Night Bus, which runs about every half hour until sometime around 2:30am. A little map and a schedule might also help, as there are few people around the airport late at night who can direct visitors correctly.
It would also improve clarity if you would let people know
that the bus from the Airport takes travelers directly downtown, AND NOT to the Pacific Central station (which
your bus station paragraph seems to imply).
It would help if you tell people who ARE arriving at Pacific Central (by AMTRACK, CPR, Greyhound, Pacific Trailways or Bolt Bus etc) that the ‘train’ from Pacific Central Station to downtown is the Skytrain, which is the thing that the traveler might know as the subway, metro, underground, monorail etc. (Another little map would help), and that the Skytrain runs very frequently until (1:30AM??), and, lthen, like a hick town bus, stops running until 5 am.
Lastly, it would help people who are arriving at Pacific
Central if you tell them that Pacific Central station is within the
downtown area, close to most hotels, and that a cab from the station to their hotel is usually safer than the late night skytrain, and only marginally more expensive than the skytrain.
Sorry if I sound like I’m being a bit picky and critical. That’s not my intent, and your instructions are actually pretty good. It’s just that I’ve organized a few conferences in past years, and learned the hard way that there’s no one more disgruntled than a participant who’s been misdirected by fuzzy travel
instructions.
Jared Finesmith