Back in February 2020, which feels like ages ago, before the world went crazy and everything shut down, we went on our Pacific Northwest family vacation. The plans for this trip started off with us finding great airfare (through Next Vaycay) to Seattle. Then, as we typically do, we looked at where else we could go from Seattle. We love to visit multiple locations within one trip! (Check out our post about our European multi-city trip.) Well, going to Canada has been on our family list as well as going skiing. So our Pacific Northwest family vacation looked like this: Seattle-Vancouver-Whistler-Seattle. I’ll be sharing about each of these places on the blog (Click here to read about Seattle and Vancouver or Skiing with Kids for more about Whistler), but for now I want to share about my favorite city of our trip, which was actually Squamish!
Squamish, in British Columbia, Canada was where we decided to stay in between Vancouver and Whistler; one – so that we could kind of divide our time between both places, two – it was cheaper, and three – I found an amazing cabin in the woods through Airbnb that I knew would be perfect for us. a
This quaint little friendly town in the mountains is beautiful and chill with lots of places to hike or explore outside … it’s my kind of place. It reminded me a bit of White Fish, Montana, which is another favorite of mine. Big cities are great, but I find places like this are soothing to the soul.
The cabin in Squamish ~ middle of nowhere, gravel drive with a gate, on a river, in the woods, wall of windows, heated by a wood stove, hot tub on the deck by the river, fire pit outside, trails nearby, wild life all around … Again, my kind of place … my favorite spot, and my favorite time spent from this trip was here.
We drank hot chocolate, grilled out hot dogs. We all got in the hot tub a few times, which everyone loved. We sat around the firepit while Josh played the guitar and we sang. This trip was right before another trip where Josh and I were going to be leading worship, so we were able to get some practice in here at this beautiful spot and worship together as a family. Such a special time.
We also watched some guys fly fishing on the river. It was cold, but not too cold outside. And all around the cabin and the beautiful drive to get there were huge trees covered with bright green moss – it was like the Wizard of Oz Emerald City!
My favorite restaurant from this trip was also in Squamish, a place called The Crabapple Café – so cute and so good! Amazing coffee, fresh ingredients, kid-friendly, and great service … a win all around.
Squamish is about a 45 minute drive to Whistler Blackcomb, the biggest ski resort in North America and where the winter Olympics were held in 2010. I wrote about our Whistler experience in a separate post (Skiing with Kids), but driving there from Squamish was a breeze. I would personally recommend that as opposed to staying at the ski resort in Whistler. Squamish is also about a 45 minute drive to Vancouver, which was a city we very much enjoyed that I will also write more about in a separate post. Both of these drives are on the Sea to Sky Highway with breathtaking views the whole way!
Since our time was divided between all these great places, our time exploring in Squamish other than being at the cabin, was somewhat short. We did manage to take in some beautiful nature checking out Shannon Falls and the Four Lakes Trail, which were both absolutely beautiful.
It is funny to me just how much you can discover about yourself and your family when you travel together to new places. You find out what energizes you, what brings you peace, what the most memorable experiences are, the ways family members are alike, and the ways we are different. Here is another reason why various locations within one trip like we did on this Pacific Northwest family vacation is a good idea. Everyone has their favorites, and it is fun to share how we feel about each part. It is all such a wonderful adventure, traveling and experiencing different places together … a treasure that I’m so thankful for and that I know I shouldn’t take for granted.
