11 Vancouver Experience Gifts That Make Memories Instead of Waste

I’m not exaggerating when I say that a Vancouver experience gift might be the best holiday shopping life hack there is. First, experiences are nearly always less wasteful than physical gifts—giving someone an intangible activity, class or ticket means there’s nothing to end up in the landfill. Second, giving someone an experience you can do together (you’re not buying one concert ticket like a lunatic) appears very thoughtful, and gives you built-in time to spend with them. I say “appears” thoughtful because of the third, darker reason why giving experiences is the best: you can buy them last-minute. A gift card arrives in your email inbox instantly, and your giftee doesn’t have to know that you waited until December 23 to start thinking of them. You’re welcome.

11 Vancouver Experience Gifts for Your 2024 Holiday Presents

Vancouver Experience Gifts: Tickets

The most obvious, mainstream gift that everyone always forgets about: get them tickets to something they love. Whether your giftee is an indie music lover or a Broadway fan, there’s plenty of events across the city to serve every kind of audience member.

Tickets to Live Theatre

Because I grew up a drama kid and naturally gravitate towards other people who were also drama kids (ask 75 percent of the Vanmag staff if they have ever been in a play), theatre tickets are always a winner for me. Check out the Arts Club, Gateway Theatre and the Cultch for their upcoming shows—the above image is from Duck Pond, a Swan Lake-inspired circus show coming to the Cultch January 22 to 25.

Tickets to a Concert

If your circle of friends is slightly cooler than the ex-drama-kid crowd, you can’t go wrong with concert tickets to a band they love. Vancouver venues like the Commodore Ballroom, the Vogue, the Fox Cabaret and the Hollywood always have jam-packed lineups. If you can guarantee that your relationship with your giftee will last ’till spring, I suggest tickets for Said the Whale at the Hollywood on March 8, 2025.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Vancouver Canucks (@canucks)

Tickets to a Hockey Game

I guess I’ll continue with this high school metaphor to round off the ticket section: if your giftee used to sit at the jock table and doodled a bunch of male genitalia in your grade 10 yearbook, consider tickets to a sports game. The Canucks season generously sits within reasonable holiday gifting time. Pro tip: watch out for home vs. away games to make sure you’re selecting Rogers Arena; you don’t want to accidentally buy a ticket to Winnipeg’s beautiful Canada Life Centre.

Vancouver Experience Gifts: Tours

Tours are often looked over when it comes to holiday gifts—they’re not quite as sexy as event tickets. But why let tourists have all the fun? Exploring your own city with an expert can be a blast, and often you get to hear behind-the-scenes info from local businesses that you can share later to appear smarter at parties.

E-biking Tours

If you haven’t tried an e-bike, I encourage you to literally get on board. It’s a wonderfully accessible, sustainable and cheap way to get around. Cycle City has great e-biking tours (from $90) if you’re wanting to stay in Vancouver proper (this would be such a good mom gift) and if you want to go a fit further afield, Blazing Saddles Adventures in Squamish makes an excellent day-trip activity ($156).

Wine Tours

You don’t have to travel to the Okanagan for a wine tour: there are plenty of Fraser Valley wineries that offer tastings. Vine and Hops has a Vancouver Wine Tour ($135) and Langley Wine Tour (from $149) that will pick you up and drop you off on Cordova Street, so you can keep the party going downtown.

The Dumpling Trail

This one isn’t an organized tour, so there isn’t a gift card or specific dates to book, but it still makes a fabulous gift… you just need to get a little creative with the presentation. The Dumpling Trail in Richmond is a map of 13 awesome eateries that offer the best dumplings around. It’s a foodie’s dream: walkable, delicious and made for sharing. (Bonus: you can decide how many restaurants to visit, so the pricing is totally up to you).

Snowmobiling

Here’s the most adrenaline-powered tour you’ll find within a few hours of the city. I say this makes a great gift from experience: my partner booked us a snowmobiling session with Blackcomb Snowmobile a few Christmases ago. It was a slightly risky choice because I don’t think I had ever expressed any interest in snowmobiling, but I loved it (and wrote about it here). The snowmobile tours start at $249.

Vancouver Experience Gifts: Classes and Workshops

It’s kind of wild how many of us spend the first 18ish years of our lives in school and then never make an effort to learn anything else for the rest of our lives. The thing is, learning is fun, especially when you’re doing it with someone you like. And especially when there are cocktails involved.

Cocktail Classes

A cocktail class from Long Table Distillery is another addition to this list that I can personally vouch for—one was gifted to me last year by a friend. I haven’t shut up about it since. I don’t want to minimize that the class was fun, informative and tasty (because it absolutely was) but one of the things I was most impressed by was the value: for $65, we got sharable snacks and made three cocktails. Frankly, it’s tough to get three cocktails anywhere downtown for $65, and this experience comes with the added validation of making it yourself… plus some skills you can bring to your at-home bartending.

Glassblowing Workshops

Oh, here’s one that I gifted someone else. After my partner binge-watched all of Netflix’s Blown Away, I decided to see if there was anywhere in Vancouver that offered glass blowing. Terminal City Glass does, and I gifted him a workshop a year or so ago. TCG’s classes start at $80 and are suitable for beginners: I can confirm that my partner returned home with a very pretty glass bowl and both of this eyebrows intact.

Cooking Classes

Another one that’s often looked over—couldn’t we all benefit from a cooking class? Bring out your giftee’s inner Ratatouille (yes, I know that the rat’s name is Remy and that Ratatouille is the name of the movie, I’m not an idiot) with a cooking class from Gourmet Warehouse or the Dirty Apron. Dirty Apron is offering a $199 class on January 9 that looks positively delectable—attendees make three dishes: lobster and mascarpone squid ink tortellini with citrus herb sauce, Szechuan pepper-crusted New York strip loin with quinoa tabbouleh and grilled shishito peppers and chocolate lava cake for dessert.

Leatherwork Workshop

This is another great hands-on activity that I learned about while chatting with leather artist Maxine Young of Mameyo Goods. The Gastown-based designer hosts workshops for beginners regularly. Her classic tote bag workshop ($280), for example, teaches participants how to make the bag above. She offers multiple $85 workshops too, with topics like making wallets and learning about leather marbling.